Chapter 25
Kyan had packed me enough for a workout, which I appreciated, and the next morning, I found myself in the makeshift gym in the larger outer room of the warehouse.
I wrapped my hands with Knight’s hand wraps and tried not to huff the pear grove scent that lingered on them.
I did check to see how many he had and was pleased to find there were quite a few. They were a bit big to stuff in my bra, but I could come back later.
I lost myself in the workout. I’d had no nightmares in Kyan’s arms, waking instead to the scent of fresh storms, and for the first time in my life, I was trying to conjure my monsters back with every hit to the punching bag.
I was falling too hard.
To Kyan, but also Knight and Zed. I couldn’t stop myself, and with heat creeping up, my hormones were haywire. I needed to get them under control and find a way out of this.
The problem was, with every minute that passed, my will to fight this was waning, and every inch I crept closer to heat, logic died in the face of hormones.
I’d lost track of how long I’d been at it, throwing my fear at the bag relentlessly, when I noticed I wasn’t alone—aside from Lucy, who was curled up and napping in the coiled battle rope. But Zed was also leaning against the metal frame that most of the heavy-duty equipment was attached to, watching me with folded arms.
I dropped my fists, narrowing my eyes. “Do… you want something?”
He was silent for a long moment, and I wondered how long he’d been watching. I’d been so focused I’d barely looked around in a while.
“Come here,” he said mildly.
I bit my lip, debating whether it was worth arguing. He didn’t move, though, and I crossed toward him.
“What?” I asked.
He lifted a hand, flashing a small black box and miniature key. “Battery change.”
“Ah. Right. Wouldn’t want that to die. Then the Omega, who you don’t want and doesn’t want to be here, might get away.”
He snorted, stepping toward me and reaching up to my neck. I shut my eyes, ignoring the little leap of my heart as his skin touched mine, or how each breath I took was filled with snow santal.
I waited, absolutely still, as he switched the battery on the collar, trying to ignore how much I wasn’t at all affronted by the damned device.
“You still box?” he asked quietly.
I glanced down to my wrapped fists, then up at him silently.
“I can’t imagine my brother supported the hobby more than your father did,” he said as he withdrew his touch, holding the old battery.
I cocked my head, considering that. Knight had taken me on a few kickboxing dates when they were courting me, and I’d loved it. My father had supported teaching me how to use a blade for self-defence, but nothing as ‘uncouth’ as ‘throwing fists or feet’ as he’d called it. Leave the fighting to the Alphas.
I smiled coldly. “I took it back up after he dumped me.”
It wasn’t a lie. Both boxing and kickboxing were something I’d claimed back after I’d fled. Zed ran his tongue along his teeth, not moving, and clearly not done.
“What do you really want?” I asked.
“I’m wondering why it seems, all of a sudden, as if you do want to be here.”
“What about my escape attempts seemed ungenuine to you?”
His jaw clenched as he stepped toward me. “You’re getting very close to Kyan.”
“I’m close to heat.” I turned back to the punching bag in dismissal.
“You can’t fuck with his head like that?—”
“I’m not—” I spun back to him but cut off, scowling. He was too close. Those ice-blue eyes were staring down at me in challenge. “He’s not making it easy.” I waved at the gym. “Why do you think I’m out here?”
I was praying that I could cool off steaming hormones. I knew I couldn’t get any closer than I had. I’d woken in their scents this morning, Kyan’s arms around my waist, nightmares a million miles away. I was starting to believe in this safety—and I couldn’t afford to.
Zed wrinkled his nose but didn’t argue.
I should take a step back. We were too close, and it was doing things to me. Zed lifted his hand as if he wanted to cup my cheek, but caught himself.
“You’re keeping me here,” I said quietly. “You’re responsible for leashing Kyan. I can’t turn off being an Omega.”
“And yet you could just… turn off being our scent match.”
I broke his gaze.
I had to step away.
Last time I’d been this close to Knight I’d made an idiot of myself.
Zed returned his hand to my neck, cupping the collar, and his touch was like a shock from the damned thing itself. Every hair on my body stood on end, my blood running hot.
I hated the way my hormones had latched onto this collar. I’d been running from these Alphas for so long, knowing a future with them couldn’t ever be, but they were defying that even when I couldn’t. It was wrong because the threat remained, regardless of which of us broke Ace’s rule.
“He wants to keep you,” Zed said quietly. “Believes you want that, too.”
I blinked up at him, throat dry, all responses dying in my mind as I tumbled into his eyes. He took one step closer, so close I felt his body brush mine as his hand closed tighter around my neck.
Instincts wiped my brain blank, my fists closing in his shirt.
I stared up at him.
Alpha…
Holy. Shit.
I was losing it. The panic was a faint echo, but I managed to try to take a step away. His grip tightened, holding me in place, and a faint whine rose in my chest.
Was I panting?
When had his hand found my waist?
My gaze dropped to where his lips were drawn in a snarl. It was all I could do not to tilt my neck to him like I had Knight, but fighting that took everything out of me.
Bite…
He was my Alpha—pack lead. His bite would claim me more than this collar. His pupils blew, grip at my waist punishing as he dragged me closer.
He would.
He had to.
There was nothing more right in the world.
Then his hand was gone, and I was in freefall, heart dropping like a stone as his touch faded.
He took one step away, then another.
Ice speared my veins, panic creeping in.
Don’t cry.
His expression was hard. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” The quiet words were more empty than cruel. If anything, there was an agony in his eyes that matched mine.
He took a final step backward before turning and leaving me to hold back tears.
It took a while before I had the courage to walk back into the living room. I quickly made for Zed’s shower—he’d told me I could use his since the cell didn’t have warm water.
The shock collar was waterproof, at the least, but when I was finished, I wasn’t sure what to do.
I settled on the couch beside Kyan, a part of me wanting to flee back to the cell so I didn’t have to see any of them tonight. Zed was seated cross-legged with his laptop on the armchair not far off. I didn’t dare meet his eyes.
“So.” Knight dropped onto the coach beside me, either missing it entirely, or reading the tension in the room and not caring. “Why Ace?”
An horrible tension hit the room, which, by Knight’s expression, was entirely his intent.
“Knight…” Zed looked sour.
“Nah. If she’s gonna come back in here and start playing Desperate fucking Housewife all of a sudden, we aren’t so conveniently skipping the big questions.”
They were staring at me, every one of them on edge for what I might say. I bit my lip, not meeting any of their eyes.
“Ace is…” I paused, trailing off for a moment, then shrugged. “He’s not like any Alpha I’ve ever met.”
Not a lie.
Zed’s expression became stiff as he stared at me.
“Let’s get it all straight, though,” Knight went on. “You chose Ace over your own mates and then cheated on him two years later. Doesn’t make much sense except for one thing.”
I watched him curiously. That, I knew, was what people believed—that Ace had shown me mercy when he’d kicked me from the Brotherhood for cheating on him. “And what is that?” I asked. They’d had years to mull it over and probably a million ideas of why I was the scent match from hell. I’d done the same at the start, kept up at night wondering what they must believe.
“He found his scent match, and it was a bit of karma for you. Did you think he was going to reject his match, like you had for him?”
I stared at Knight, working through that.
Thistle was Ace’s scent match.
I knew her. She was… a sister, in a way, a haunted mirror of myself, but her reflection had cracked long ago.
A sister who’d never had what I had, because while I had scent matches to fight for, hers had been from hell itself.
“Something like that,” I replied quietly. “He was more interested in her when she arrived.”
That was the truth. For a short time, she’d ripped the spotlight from me. I remember being relieved because Ace had a new fixation. Except she’d broken so quickly. Ace became bored, and he’d returned. I’d been left hollow at my own anger—that she couldn’t have lasted longer, when I still fought.
What a vile thing to be angry about.
There had been times when I’d tried to comfort her—slipping into her rooms at night when I could get away with it. I would find her trapped in her own nightmares, and I would burrow beneath the covers at her side and hold her hand. Sometimes, she would drag me close, clinging to me like the last raft at sea, but I never knew if it helped or not. Her scent would sometimes seem more shattered by the time I left.
“I lasted a year with her there,” I said with a shrug. The story helped me cover the truth they couldn’t know.
It had been a year that Thistle had been there before I got away.
In that time, she’d broken in every way.
I’d seen her kill on his command—guards, friends, and even her own blood. In heats, she begged for him. I knew, because he made me watch so I could see what I could have if I would only cave.
Ace had a pack, if for no other reason than politics and control. His pack mates were two Alphas across different Brotherhood factions in other states. None outranked him, so they would visit for her heat, yet were banned from touching her until she’d asked for him first.
I’d hated seeing that more than anything else. Seeing her become nothing before him. Seeing her give up that last piece no one else should own as she begged for the man who’d destroyed her.
And she’d taught me a lesson more valuable than anything else: when bored, Ace became more cruel and creative than ever. Breaking for him was far from the end. And in that, Thistle had given me the greatest gift, even if she’d never meant to.
I met Knight’s eyes, seeing disgust in them.
Right.
I was playing callous cheating bitch. It was important, since I had to stop them getting attached, and the story was working itself out so easily in Knight’s head. Still, I didn’t glance up at Kyan, at my side. He’d been quiet, hand hovering near my arm, as if he wanted to comfort me.
I forced a smile to my face. “I’m not big on sharing.”
Zed snorted.
“Do you miss it?” I asked.
“What?”
“The Brotherhood.” I was more curious about that than I would admit. How many times had Ace bragged to me that I knew him better than even his brother did? That he’d worn a mask for years, for Zed, even for his father—leaving me to take the fall with such ease when I had rejected them.
As sick as Ace was, I was grateful for that part. If Zed, Knight, or Kyan had suspected anything else, they might have come for me.
And if they had, they would have died.
But was there a forgotten future Zed had lost when he’d been exiled? A vision he’d had for the gang he’d once been destined to run.
There was a pause, and the look on his face told me he was trying to figure out why I was asking him about that. Eventually, he shrugged. “At first.”
Knight glanced at me. “From what we heard, Ace turned it into?—”
“Something my dad would be proud of,” Zed put in. I could see the bitterness on his face.
“You would have done things differently?” I asked.
Zed shrugged, making a non-committal sound.
I already knew the answer, though. I knew Zed’s heart. I knew he’d wanted to drag the Brotherhood back from the edge of the cliff his father had pushed them to.
He might have been able to, as well.
Ace, though? He’d made his father’s legacy look like child’s play. The gang was more brutal than it had ever been, eating their own and using fear to stay on top.
“Right. So what?” Knight asked. “Now you’ve been alone for years and you run into us again…”
I snorted, tapping on my collar. “I want to leave, remember? Don’t act like I’m pining over you.”
“You are, Sweet Oasis.” Kyan pulled me into his arms. “I proved that the other night for everyone to see.”
I snorted. “A good fuck does not constitute?—”
“Shh,” Kyan murmured, pressing his fingers to my lips. “Or I’ll have to prove it again. You’re not blushing nearly enough.”
I was now just hearing the possessive rumble of a growl in his chest. Before I could stop myself, I’d sunk into the crook of his arm, finding it hard to fight my desperation for the way he felt, those old scars still closing with every touch.
Knight got to his feet, though, and I didn’t miss the dark expression on his face as he exited the room to the larger open room beyond.
I hugged my knees to my chest, watching the boxing for a while longer before I made my decision. I got to my feet, crossing to Knight’s room, and knocked on the door gently.
When there was no reply, I knocked again, unlatching the door and peering in. Knight was at his desk, but his eyes caught me the moment the door opened. He ripped his headset off, crossing to me in an instant. “I don’t want you getting your scent all up in my fucking room.”
“I don’t have to come in.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s about Kyan,” I said.
Knight glared at me. “What about him?”
“You’re… together?” I asked.
“He’ll have your neck if he hears you saying that.” Knight snorted.
“You aren’t?”
“No Princess. I like to punish him when he’s a brat.”
I frowned. He was protective of Kyan, beyond regular pack mates. “What happened with him after I left?” I asked. “I have to know.” I thought maybe, I already did, but a guess wasn’t enough.
Knight froze, glaring at me. Then he opened his mouth and shut it.
“You have to?” He looked bitter.
“It’s… it’s important to me.”
“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” he asked.
I waited, balling my fists at my side and bracing.
Finally, Knight unclenched his jaw. “Meeting you fucked with his brain chemistry, Glade. He wasn’t stable to start with.”
I nodded. I knew that. Kyan’s family had resorted to barbaric methods to make him what he was—wanting a son who would make a name for them in the Brotherhood. Every Alpha instinct had been dialled up, pushed on, honed in, burning away everything else.
“What did you think would happen?” Knight asked.
I swallowed, having no answer to that. There had been no plan. Just a prayer that Zed and Knight would be enough.
And they had been, but maybe that was a closer call than even I knew.
“And when I… I left?” It was a question I didn’t want to ask, and yet… I had to know.
“When you rejected us,” Knight corrected coldly. “I’ll tell you, not because you deserve to know, but because I hope you have some fucking decency left, and you’ll stop screwing with his brain.”
I stared at him, throat suddenly dry.
It was bad. I knew from Knight’s fury.
There was a long, long silence before he spoke. “Found him on the roof of his dad’s house, gun to his head.”
What?
It felt like the very earth came to a halt as I stared up into Knight’s eyes. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but that wasn’t it.
Somehow, I’d imagined that if things had become difficult, they would have got ahead of it.
But that…
Bile rose in my throat.
That wasn’t just a close call. It sounded like there had been seconds between… Between a world with and without him in it.
The world spun. I didn’t know when I’d reached the door to the outer warehouse, but I was staggering through it. I needed air.
I needed to be as far from their scents as I could get.