Chapter 7
SEVEN
THISTLE
I woke up with my shitty artificial heat over, yet drowning in a sea of raging Alpha hormones.
I reached out, fumbling for Rogue. Last I remembered, I was clinging to his back as he cooked. Instead, my hand was weighed down by a heavy blanket.
Where was he?
I pouted, but then my eyes snapped open at an almighty crash and a growl.
Huh?
I scrambled up, finding myself all tucked in on a couch with Rogue’s sweet bourbon scent mark on me.
As it should be.
I rubbed my eyes, taking in the scene.
My two beautiful Alphas were brawling .
A full-scale violent fight.
As I watched, Knox was thrown back into the kitchenette.
I shuffled to the edge of the couch, keeping low so they wouldn’t notice I was watching. I didn’t want them to stop on my account—this was the coolest thing ever .
Knox was so gorgeous, lips drawn in a snarl as he launched himself back at Rogue, nothing but madness in his caramel eyes. I could see the flash of blood across his neck from the few bites I’d left, and joy swelled in my chest.
I paused.
Should I do something?
I didn’t think so.
Better to let ’em get it out of their system, right… Bunny?
I swallowed, eyes darting back to the bedroom, fingers biting down on a blanket instead of the plushie I was so used to having near.
I shoved back the wave of nausea.
Right. Yup. They needed to fight it out. I could soothe them after. Besides, if it was wrong, it wouldn’t be so sexy to watch.
Rogue snarled as Knox used his full weight to throw him back into the kitchen counter. His hand caught the edge of a bowl, and next thing I knew, the air exploded with spaghetti confetti.
With a wide-eyed, wild snarl, the fight met the main living area as Rogue, in a complete fury, bowled Knox over a barstool and out of the kitchen space entirely.
Knox didn’t get a chance to get up before Rogue had him by the hair. He felt insane in the bond, and I had to clamp a hand over my mouth so I didn’t giggle out loud.
Pasta, it seemed, was the last straw.
Rogue dragged Knox to his feet, then slammed him face-first into the shelves that held weights, muzzles, knuckledusters, and other bits and bobs.
I winced.
Ooo… They really weren’t playin’.
“That was hers! ” Rogue hissed.
He might look a lot more frightening if there weren’t pieces of pasta draping his hair and shoulders.
Knox scrambled, fist closing around the dark metal muzzle nearest him before throwing his weight back, turning, and slamming it into the side of Rogue’s head.
Rogue staggered a step, blinking violently. “I saved you, you spoiled piece of?—!”
“Spoiled?” Knox snarled, launching after him, grappling for his neck with difficulty. He was strong, but Rogue was stupid- huge , so it was probably a losing strategy.
“You got two years! I did—” Rogue spat out a glob of blood as he tried to throw Knox back, catching himself on the wall for balance. “I did four—is that not enough?”
“There is no enough !” Knox hissed, almost tripping as he took another unsteady step back for balance, his foot catching a dumbbell. He recovered quickly, grabbing hold of the set of shelves for balance before throwing himself back into the fight. “ I didn’t choose this. You did.”
“You took my scent match!” Rogue sounded murderous as he tried to throw off Knox, who was trying to grab for his face.
Maybe going for the eyes?
“And you deserved… all of it, you psychopath —” Knox’s voice cut off as Rogue threw his whole massive weight forward, hands around his neck. Knox flailed, reaching out wildly until his fingers closed around a bar of the shelves again, and— oh!
With an almighty heave, he dragged the whole thing over onto both of them. The structure came clattering down, raining guns, weights, muzzles, and heavy-looking boxes full of random stuff.
I had to crane my neck to make sure they were okay. Both were panting, dragging themselves out from either side of it. Knox groaned, lifting a weight from his stomach and shoving it away before collapsing back down. Rogue flipped himself onto his back, chest heaving.
Uh… I think they were finished?
Sure enough, there was a long, long quiet as they caught their breath and I wrung the blanket in my hands, wondering if I’d done the wrong thing.
“The…” Knox coughed violently. “The… Misfits?”
“Safe room.”
“And…” His voice was strained. “Bella?”
I shrank where I sat on the couch at the sound of that name, tugging the blankets closer.
“Got away,” Rogue replied. “Three of her Alphas are dead. The rest panicked when Ace showed up, desperate to drag her out. If I’d killed her, they’d have had no reason not to slaughter us all.”
“She…” Knox spat a curse. “She fucking knows about me. What I was doing in the Ring?—”
“I know.”
I swallowed the lump of hatred back, caught between it and the terror I felt.
What if she came back to take him?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
No, no, no.
Rogue brought him back to me. There was a plan. Obviously there was a plan.
“She’ll be licking her wounds for a while,” Rogue muttered. “We have time.”
“To do fucking what?” Knox spluttered. “The whole goddamn trafficking ring will be after?—”
“All of us,” Rogue finished.
I bit my lip.
They didn’t sound sure that we could get out of this—not even Rogue. I thought back to the party Knox had hosted, full of important people.
All of them might be after us?
To take… to take my Alphas away?
Can’t have it.
Can’t have it at all.
KNOX
My whole body ached with each breath, and I was pretty sure bruises were blooming on every inch of my being.
I wasn’t ready to get up, and neither, it seemed, was Rogue.
Fuck.
Fuck.
My mind was clearing now; the initial rage burned out of my system with adrenaline.
But then I heard the faintest padding of soft footsteps and froze.
She had been asleep, but… well, we hadn’t exactly been quiet.
I looked up, then caught myself, an unexpected terror leaching into my bones. My breath was tight all of a sudden, and not from the fight.
I forced myself into a sitting position, a few loose strands of cold pasta tumbling around me.
There she was.
Thistle.
She wore an oversized top that she clutched in white-knuckled fists. Bare legs and pale skin. Her raven hair was down, tumbling to her waist, and her violet eyes were wide with uncertainty as she took another step toward me.
God.
I wasn’t ready for the way it felt, looking at her. After waking in terror, after the adrenaline and the fight—to a free fall like this.
None of that left me ready for something without any spikes, or claws, or sharp edges.
A rush of… I don’t know.
I just… I loved her.
And I’d grown years worth of armour to protect me from cruelty, from hatred. So this ? It was like kryptonite, seeping through a million cracks, closing up my throat.
I shut my eyes for a moment, choked by it.
A different panic clung to me.
Guilt, almost as cruel and dark as the bond I was trying to keep locked down.
There was a spike in her frosted moonflower scent, and my eyes snapped open.
She’d come to a halt, and there was fear etched across her features as she stared at me. For a moment, she glanced to the right—to the other side of the fallen shelf—where Rogue was still lying.
He hadn’t said anything, which was good. I didn’t want to hear his stupid fucking voice.
And I didn’t want him ruining this moment, either.
“Daddy?” she whispered, a little crack in her rough voice.
I reached forward, grabbing her by the shirt and dragging her against me.
Even that was enough to loosen my lungs.
“I love you,” I whispered. “And I’m so…” The word got trapped for a moment, threatening to drown me. “I’m sorry.” The truth, at last, came crashing down as I buried my face in her neck. Everything that had happened, it was because of me.
My vendetta had turned on her.
I was the reason she was here at all.
All that pain she didn’t need to carry.
“You… you bit her.” Her words were muffled, but I could hear the pain in them.
“I’ll fix it, Doll,” I told her. “I promise.”
I would.
But now I knew that I’d saved her life by rejecting her before. I shivered, knowing the tiny frame clutched in my arms right now would be cold, still, and lifeless if I had bitten her when she’d asked it of me in this very room, with Rogue’s bond still dripping fresh blood.
But still, I hated that I’d been so prideful.
That I’d hurt her.
I would never make that mistake again.
It wasn’t long before I was on my way to fixing everything I’d broken in the fight. I didn’t regret beating the shit out of Rogue, but I’d ruined her dinner.
Plus, she had a feral soul match still in chains.
So while I boiled pasta on the stove, I worked on the Ace situation.
With a crack, the metal split beneath the slim baton I was using as leverage, and the first of his cuffs clattered to the stone.
The chains around his wrists were eroded and almost broken, so it hadn’t taken much effort to get them free.
His golden mask lay discarded on the ground beside us. He was quiet, seated against the bars of the cage. Not nearly rowdy enough for me to think about locking him in, which was… surprising.
I’d pushed Rogue for years, but I realised I had no idea what I was supposed to actually do with a feral Alpha.
He was far quieter than I’d imagined.
It was a good distraction from the bond still alive in my mind—one I was still getting a grip on. It was easier to shut Bella and her Alphas out when I was calm.
Right as I broke the second cuff off, a hiss cut through the silence from the stove.
“Shit.” I staggered to my feet, crashing toward Rogue’s kitchen— “Don’t!”
I nearly launched at Rogue again as he moved for the overflowing pot.
“I’m making it,” I snarled, grabbing him by the shirt. “You said truce.”
He peered down at my fist, then back up at me. “Do you know what that means?”
“ I’m making her pasta.”
His eyes slid to the hissing steam clouding the air as water boiled over. “Okay…” He stepped back, palms raised in mock surrender.
When the pot was drained and the stove finally shut up, some of the tension bled out of me.
But I wasn’t happy until Thistle was curled up on the couch, a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese in her hands as Rogue sprinkled parmesan onto her dish.