Chapter 6
SIX
KNOX
I woke in darkness.
Echoes of others were with me, rustling in the quiet of my mind. Six Alphas I didn’t want to share a bond with.
And… her.
I shut it down, shoving them out of my mind.
I pushed myself up, searching for the faintest strip of light in my vision as I grappled with this foreign connection. I knew what it was, though, even before the memories flooded back.
Fuck…
I inhaled to soothe my heart rate, but it was like she was here.
Bella.
The scent of absinthe.
Her blood lingered in my mouth, her scent in my lungs.
The first bond I’d ever been a part of—and it disgusted me. My heart twisted in sorrow. Rogue was in his first bond, too, but with the Omega we both loved…
It was hard—keeping my thoughts straight after that.
I choked back a growl, staggering to my feet.
I wasn’t chained up.
There was the smallest strip of light, and the door wasn’t locked.
A lapse?
Was she toying with me?
She’d promised me something. If I bit her…
Thistle…
Was she safe?
My memories were still tangled, nothing but a jumble of terror after I’d bitten Bella. Order and time didn’t make sense. I’d collided with her pack. Thistle was distraught… Then there had been a strange, sweet smell as cloth was crushed against my mouth.
My neck ached, and I touched two fresh bites upon my skin.
It had to be her. Bella had bitten me back. But the rage I thought I should feel didn’t surface.
I staggered to the cracked door, dreading what I’d see beyond. My fingers grappled with it, and I ripped it back, blinking in the light, but?—
What?
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, but when I opened them, the world was still spinning.
And that was…
I had to be dreaming because it was the strangest picture I’d ever seen.
I was staring into Rogue’s basement. He was topless, standing in the kitchen, draining spaghetti into a sieve in the sink.
Ever so oddly, on his back, was Thistle.
She was draped upon him like a rag doll, her arms hanging limply over his shoulders.
She was sleeping, I realised, and there were two belts around them both, holding her against him—though he kept reaching up and readjusting her.
I had to be hallucinating.
At least I thought—until Rogue turned to search for something on the island and caught sight of me.
He froze, hand outstretched.
“Ah.”
That was all he said.
But my inhale was suddenly flooded with their scents. Moonflower and honied bourbon. They had been there the whole time, even if my mind had refused to process them.
I remained frozen, clawing back memories desperately to make sense of the picture before me as the world tried to leave me behind.
Rogue reached the couch. He hiked Thistle up on his back before sitting down and undoing the belts. The tender look on his face was alien to me as he tucked her between blankets and cushions.
Still, I stared, unable to process anything.
Not even as he stepped toward me, eyes narrowed.
I hadn’t moved. My fingers ached with the grip I had on the door as I stared at him.
He said something, but I didn’t hear it. Teal eyes held mine, and words were spilling from my mouth like venom. “What did you do?”
A terror I wasn’t expecting threatened to consume me.
The answer, though, was creeping in.
I was outside in the night air with Bella, fighting the drugs, but I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t fight.
And then…
The door opened.
“Kill me.” That’s what I’d begged of Rogue.
Fuck.
But here—this room had to be real. It couldn’t be hell with her in it and couldn’t be heaven with him. Which left me with one last frightening reality.
“What did I do?” Rogue snorted, and the world slowed as he spoke the words I wasn’t ready to hear—that in a million years I wouldn’t be ready to hear. “I saved your ungrateful?—”
I lunged, a growl in my chest as sanity fled me completely.
Because there was no world in which I could owe Rogue Manzo a debt like this.