Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
THISTLE
Tears beaded up in my eyes as Rogue wrestled with a pile of chains. He let out a frustrated growl, trying to figure out which one to attach to my collar. He was doing it one-handed, since his other held me at the bedside with an iron grip on my arm.
He’d dragged me right to my room at Knox’s command, and now he wouldn’t look at me.
I never wanted to let him go, but it’s like I didn’t matter to him.
I’m not enough…
I’d fought so hard to find my way to him, and now he was trying to return me like a mouldy apple from the store, dragging me up here after everything…
I clutched Bunny, but it wasn’t enough.
Where did I go wrong?
I’d done everything I thought an Alpha would want.
Finally, he seemed to find a chain the right size. He looped it around the headboard of the bed, holding me still while he attached it to my neck.
“Was it th-the nesting?” I whispered.
“The… nesting?” he asked, eyes finally meeting mine as the rest of the chains all clinked loudly as they slid to the floor.
The nesting would be easier. That I could fix. “There w-wasn’t anything else I could use down there but I can do better, I p-promise?—”
“No.”
No?
He wouldn’t give me another chance?
I couldn’t breathe, as if a fist was squeezing my throat shut.
It wasn’t fair.
I hadn’t known that would be my only chance.
I could have brought more pillows down.
Stupid.
It was Ace all over again.
I wasn’t enough.
“Kitten—!” He began, but cut off at my choked sob.
Why was he calling me that if he hated me?
He drew me close, though, easing my breaths with huge arms wrapped around me. “This is not your fault.”
Oh…
I wailed.
Fuck.
It was my size, then. My frame, or my breasts were too small. Or my voice. Oh, the crook on my nose—or maybe he just didn’t like my face at all?—
“There’s nothing wrong with you.” His hand was firm on my chin as he made me look at him. “Listen to me. He’s going to focus on me. I want you to close your eyes, alright?” he asked. “I don’t want you watching.”
I was shaking, trying to process what was happening.
My brain was all scrambled since I’d walked into that room and seen him.
Things were different now.
Knox just didn’t understand.
“This is my fault, you shouldn’t be taking the?—”
He cut me off with a kiss, and my brain went temporarily numb.
So… he didn’t hate me?
For real, I think.
When he drew away, he was still cupping my cheek. “I’ll be fine. Knox hits like a baby, anyway.” He snorted. “And I’d trade this ten times over for waking to?—”
“That—” Knox’s voice cut him off from the doorway. “—Was not what I asked of you.”
Huge, comforting arms were gone, but I bit back my sob this time, trying to focus on Knox.
Rogue had stood and was crossing toward him. He squared Knox right up, towering over him. “I will not watch her blame herself for what is between us.”
Knox tugged something out of his pocket. Taking a seat on the office chair he’d dragged to the middle of the room and tossed the something to the floor.
I heard the loud clang of metal and stared at it, throat constricting as I realised it was a set of brass knuckles.
“Knox…” I tugged at the chain, scrambling from the bed to as far as it would go, desperation making it hard to breathe. “Just wait!”
This was my fault.
All my fault.
Knox paused, turning to me.
I reached for him, whining as the chain jammed again, but he stepped forward and my grip closed on his shirt.
“I’d have guessed, by our conversation earlier, that you were perfectly aware of what might happen if you pushed some more,” he said.
“Yes, but…” The fingers of my free hand dug into my scalp. “But then I met him. I need him. You c-can’t stop me from seeing him.”
“I can.”
“But you don’t understand. He’s my scent match. I n-need him. Please don’t do this.”
I lifted my hand, cupping his neck as I looked up at him. “Don’t hurt him,” I whispered.
“And what are you going to do to convince me not to?”
I froze, panic spearing my veins.
He wasn’t nearly as broken in the brain when it came to me as I was with him, but sometimes I could see him waning—I could see the lust in his eyes when he looked at me.
But that was all I had, and Rogue was still here.
“Um… could he leave? Then we could…” I swallowed, trying not to look at Rogue. I leaned closer, tugging at his shirt again until he took a little step, my voice a whisper. “I’ll be anything you want.”
“You just asked if you could bring him in.”
I bit my lip, knowing he was playing with me now, but this couldn’t happen. Not when I’d met Rogue, and he was real and more perfect than I could ever have imagined.
Knox went on when I couldn’t find an answer. “ Both of my pets have misbehaved. Whoever gets punished, the other will watch.”
I heard the echo of Rogue’s growl. “I said it would be me.”
“She’s the one who broke the rules. Perhaps it should be her call.”
“No—!”
“Sit down and shut. Your. Mouth ,” Knox snarled, turning burning eyes on Rogue, who was on his feet.
I flinched back, heart fluttering uncomfortably.
I’d never heard him like that before.
Rogue’s chest was heaving, and I finally did look at him as he sat stiffly in the seat, burning eyes fixed on me. When I met them, he shook his head and there was fury in his gaze.
I… I didn’t like this.
I didn’t like how cold Knox was, or how I truly had nothing here.
I’d been so afraid that if I broke for Knox, I’d lose Rogue. I hadn’t thought about the other way around…
Back to the start, Bunny.
Out of power.
Or maybe we’d never really had any at all.
Knox was really good at playing pretend.
“What will it be?” he asked me. “Are you going to watch him take a beating for you? Or do you want him watching while I claim every sweet little hole you have to offer?”
A whine of distress slipped from my chest as I stared at Knox, afraid of what was written on Rogue’s face.
He wouldn’t ever want me after that…
Never, never, never.
I thought to the way his skin felt on mine as I’d burrowed beneath his shirt. How I’d woken with his arms around me.
I’d be giving it all up if Knox claimed me like that.
“C-could um… could you give me his punishment?” My voice was weak, too quiet for Rogue to hear, and my eyes dropped to the brass knuckles Rogue had dropped on the floor between them.
I shivered, memories of before Ace’s mansion flooding my mind. Of Dan and his pack, or the agony they’d left me in sometimes.
And not just the pain, but the way it had torn me up on the inside, too, laying bleeding and broken from Alphas. From those who were supposed to want me. To want to protect me and claim me.
That agony was white hot, and so much more endless than any cut or bruise or broken bone.
And if Knox did that…
I shoved back tears.
I was so pathetic I’d wanted him to stay and cuddle me last night. I’d shivered, on the verge of crying for an hour in that stupid bundle of blankets when he hadn’t, only upset because I’d had a taste of what it might feel like to be wanted, and I’d believed it.
But Knox was a lie, and this was the truth.
He’d just… felt more like a protector should feel than anyone I’d ever been around. My instincts couldn’t get a grip on this . This reality here, where he owned and tortured my true mate. I was a means to an end.
Not someone he wanted to hold close.
I was so stupid.
He hadn’t answered, though, and my fist closed in his shirt. “Please.”
It would break me, but how many times had Glade broken in protection of her mates?
The ones she had now.
She’d rejected Ace over and over, never letting him close no matter how much it hurt.
That sort of loyalty, it was rewarded, no matter how bleak the present looked.
And I needed Rogue.
He was all I had left.
“Take his punishment?” Knox repeated back to me slowly.
“No!” Rogue’s voice was low and deadly as he heard those words, but I couldn’t look at him. “Try it, Knox. I will fucking kill you.”
It was only then that I realised how Knox was looking at me. The ice in his eyes had died a little. “That was never in the cards, Doll,” he said slowly.
“B-but I’m… here because of him. Why does it matter?”
A long silence passed, in which he looked like he was searching for a good answer. For a second, his eyes flickered to Rogue. “If I harmed a hair on your head in front of him, he’d go feral, and then I’d be out of fun.”
Would he?
I dared another look at Rogue, who watched us both with a strained expression. His fist was balled at his side, and I could see the tremor in it, and his scent… Well, honied bourbon had been charred from the first time I’d caught it, but now that part was so strong I could taste it in the air.
I blinked, realising Knox was right.
My mate truly was on the edge of feral.
“Please.” The word was raw as I looked back to Knox. I reached up, palms cupping his cheek as I laced as much desperation and need into my voice as I could. “Please, Alpha. Please don’t hurt him this time.”
He stared down at me, eyes fixed on mine, body absolutely still.
I was shaking.
His pupils dilated, bottomless black orbs so wide that he looked wild.
His breathing slowed, the fury in his scent dulling in the air at last.
Good.
Okay, good.
But then?—
“Let me go,” he growled, the words low and deadly.
I—no.
I couldn’t.
He was… he was listening.
He was mine.
It would all be okay.
“Let. Me. Go.” His voice was frigid and laced with the strongest command I’d ever felt, and I released him like I’d been shocked.
He stepped back.
Wait…
No…!
I lunged after him, a strangled yelp of pain slipping out as the collar jammed at my neck.
“N-no, Knox. I swear. I w-won’t do it again.”
He looked mad as he stared at me, a wild laugh slipping from his mouth. “You’re such a little liar.”
He was losing it.
Ink and antique wood was strange in the air.
“Could be worse, though, couldn’t it, Mutt? Show her,” Knox went on, undoing the cuff of his sleeve as he took another step away from me. “At least it’s just these little things.”
He tapped the knuckle dusters with his shoe.
There was a pause as Knox finished rolling up his sleeves. Rogue was tense, eyes fixed on the floor, jaw ticking.
“Well?”
He drew his lips back in a snarl, then slowly tugged his shirt off.
My eyes went wide as I saw what Knox meant.
There were large, torso-wide scars, thin and horrifying, across his chest. Three or four at least that I could see.
I’d never seen anything like it.
A whip, or a knife…
I stepped back, shrinking onto the bed, grabbing at a pillow and hugging it close with Bunny as if that might stop this.
The first tear tumbled down my cheek.
This was my fault.
Knox leaned down and picked up the brass knuckles, then glanced back at me, pausing only for a second as he took me in, curled up with Bunny.
I couldn’t close my eyes like Rogue had told me.
My fault…
Knox looked manic. “Don’t worry, Doll, he won’t hold it against me or you. It’s just business, Rogue, isn’t that right?” he asked, and he spat on the floor at Rogue’s feet.
Rogue met my eyes for a brief flash, then shut his. Rolling his shoulders and bracing, and the snarl on his lips held the traces of bitterness.
Knox grinned, dropping his voice to something vicious as he spread his arms for me. “I mean, what else do you suggest I do with a pet that won’t do what he’s fucking told?”
I jumped violently, fingers deathly tight on Bunny as Knox went from swaggering mad man, to violent Alpha in a split second, and the CRACK! of the first punch split the air.