Chapter Eight
The Truth Behind the Fury
Knox
Tonight. Briana gives me until tonight.
Then she walks away from me with her spine straight, her throat bare, and fear tucked so tightly beneath her skin I can taste it from across the room.
No more hiding.
The words sit in my chest like a blade.
I told her I would tell her the truth, and I meant it.
I still mean it. But meaning something and surviving it aren’t the same.
I have faced vampires, demons, shifters twice my size, and creatures with mouths where eyes should be.
I have killed monsters in the cage beneath The Gin Room and walked away with blood on my hands and nothing in my chest.
None of that scares me the way Briana does. Not because she is weak. Because she is not.
Not because she is broken. Because she keeps standing with all the broken pieces in her hands, daring the world to tell her they make her less.
I don’t know how to stand before that kind of woman and confess that fate put my name somewhere near hers without sounding like another monster making a claim.
The beast in me doesn’t care about sounding like anything. He has one truth.
Mate.
Mine.
Ours.
I shove him back so hard my skull aches. She is not mine. Not until she chooses. Maybe not even then, not in the way he means it.
Cruz finds me in the cage an hour after Briana disappears upstairs. I am not fighting, and that alone should concern everyone.
I stand in the center of the empty cage, shirtless, hands wrapped, staring at the dark stains on the mat that no amount of scrubbing ever fully removes. Blood leaves memory behind. So does fear. So does restraint, if a man has to use enough of it.
The door creaks open. “You’re brooding aggressively,” Cruz says.
I don’t turn. “Go away.”
“I can’t. Ari sent me.”
“That should make you want to go away more.”
“She threatened me with glitter.” His face shows the degree of revulsion he feels at the mere thought of being glitter bombed.
I grunt.
Cruz steps inside and closes the cage door behind him. He doesn’t come too close. He knows me better than anyone. He can read the tension in my shoulders, the way my hands flex, the way my breathing is too steady to be calm.
“You’re telling her tonight,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I look at him then. “That’s all?”
He lifts both hands. “Do you want me to be difficult? I can circle back.”
I face the far wall again. “She asked what she is to me.”
“And you didn’t answer.”
“I said tonight.”
“Very dramatic.”
“I didn’t want to do it with everyone watching.”
“That’s the least stupid thing you’ve said all week.” He nods, agreeing with himself. He shrugs. “Low bar.”
Silence stretches between us. Above us, the bar slowly comes alive. Staff arrive. Chairs scrape. Ari’s voice cuts through the ceiling, bright and sharp. Somewhere in the building, Briana moves too. I tell myself I don’t know that. I tell myself I have not learned the weight of her footsteps.
Cruz leans against the cage wall. “You’re afraid she’ll hate you.”
“Yes.”
“You’re afraid she’ll feel trapped by the bond.”
“Yes.”
“You’re afraid she’ll choose you because fate did before she did.”
My hands curl. “Yes.”
Cruz nods slowly. “Then tell her that too.”
I breathe out through my nose. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t simple. It’s true.”
I hate when he makes sense. It feels unnatural.
He pushes off the cage. “Don’t dress it up. Don’t make decisions for her while pretending to protect her. Tell her what she is. Tell her what it means. Tell her what it doesn’t mean. Then shut up long enough for her to decide what to do with it.”
My beast snarls at the idea of waiting. “And if she walks away?” I ask.
Cruz’s face stills. The question costs me more than blood.
“If she walks away,” he says quietly, “you let her.”
My chest hollows out, and the beast inside me roars so violently my horns ache beneath my skin, and I close my eyes.
Let her.
Two words. A world I am not sure I can survive. But if I can’t let her walk away, then I don’t deserve her staying.
“I know,” I say.
Cruz watches me for a long moment, then nods once. “Good. Try not to make her cry.” I glare at him. He opens the cage door. “Or do. Women like emotional honesty. I hear that from reliable sources.”
“Ari?”
“Terrifyingly reliable.” He leaves before I can throw something.
****
By the time night settles over Brooklyn, I have walked the building six times, checked the wards twice, even though I can’t read magic, threatened a ghoul for looking suspicious while buying cigarettes in the alley, and almost taken Cruz’s head off when he hummed a wedding march under his breath.
I am fine. I am absolutely not fine.
At 11:00, Briana sends a message through Ari. Not a text. Ari herself appears at the bottom of the stairs with pink hair, yellow boots, and a face full of warning.
“She says to meet her on the roof.”
My stomach drops. “The roof?”
“Yes. The roof. Where there’s air and no audience.” Ari steps closer and points a glitter-painted nail at my chest. “Listen to me, Horns.”
I look down at her finger, and Malichai growls from behind her.
I look past Ari. “Control your mate.”
Ari spins. “Don’t even think about it, dragon.”
Malichai’s mouth shuts, and I almost respect him.
Ari turns back to me. “Briana is stronger than anyone gives her credit for, but don’t confuse strong with invulnerable. Tell her the truth. All of it. And, Knox?”
“What?”
“If you hurt her because you are too scared to be honest, I will let Akasha turn your horns into candleholders.”
I stare at her. “She can do that?”
Ari smiles. “Do you want to find out?”
“No.”
“Excellent.” She pats my chest. “Go be emotionally devastating.”
I hate everyone in this building.
****
I take the stairs to the roof because the elevator feels too small for everything inside me.
The roof above The Gin Room is old brick, with iron railings, and planters—Ari insists they are a garden, even though half the plants look personally offended at being alive.
The city stretches around us in glittering violence, windows lit like watchful eyes, traffic arteries glowing red and white, the night sky bruised purple over Brooklyn.
Briana stands near the railing wearing jeans, boots, and a black sweater that slips off one shoulder. Her hair is loose, pale strands catching in the wind. No collar. No velvet. No knife visible, though I know she has one.
She turns when the door closes behind me, and for a moment, neither of us speaks, but the city fills the silence.
“You came,” she says.
“You told me to.”
“I asked.”
“Yes.” I stop several feet away. “You asked.”
“Are you going to tell me?” she asks.
“Yes.” But the word doesn’t move anything forward. My tongue feels too thick. My chest is too tight. My beast paces, furious and terrified, and for once I don’t know where the animal ends, and the man begins.
Briana wraps her arms around herself, then drops them like she is angry at the habit.
“Knox.” I look at her. “I’m scared,” she says, “so if this is terrible, say it fast.”
That breaks something in me. “You are my mate.”
The words come out rough, raw, and far too simple for the damage they can do.
Briana goes still as the wind lifts her hair around her face. Her eyes don’t widen. She doesn’t gasp, run, or ask what I mean. She looks at me, absorbing the words the way she absorbs everything, with fear, suspicion, and a kind of brutal courage that makes breathing difficult.
“Your mate,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Like Ari and Malichai? Akasha and Korvin?”
“Yes. No.” I drag a hand over my jaw. “Similar. But it’s Different for Minotaurs.”
Her mouth tightens. “Explain.”
I force myself not to move closer. “True mates are rare for my kind. Most of us never find one. When we do, the beast knows before the man has time to think. It’s not gentle.
It’s not subtle. It’s...” I search for words that don’t sound like a chain.
“Recognition. Hunger. Devotion. Madness if we let it become that.”
Her face pales slightly, and I hate myself.
“So when did you know?” she asks.
I close my eyes for one second before I give her the truth. “The night they brought you in.”
She inhales, Nothing else, just that. A small sound, but it’s enough to make the beast whine.
“You were unconscious,” I say quickly. “Akasha carried you. You were bleeding. I saw you, and my beast knew. I left before you woke up because I didn’t trust myself to stay away from you.”
“Stay away from me,” she repeats.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” My laugh is humorless. “Not well.”
She looks toward the city. “Everyone knew?”
“Cruz. Aldron guessed. The others suspected.”
“But not me.”
“No.”
Her jaw tightens. There it is, the anger. Anger means she is still with me. Anger means she has not disappeared into fear.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because you had already had too much taken from you.”
“And you decided truth would be another thing I couldn’t handle.”
I deserve that even though it smarts like a motherfucker. “Yes.”
Her eyes snap back to mine, but I don’t look away.
“Yes,” I repeat. “That’s what I did. I told myself I was protecting you.
Maybe part of me was. But part of me was afraid.
Afraid you would look at me and see another monster wanting something from your body.
Afraid you would think fate was another collar.
Afraid you would choose me because of the bond before you could choose yourself. ”
Her throat works.
I take one breath, then another. “I was wrong to keep it from you.”
The anger in her face shifts. Not gone but changed. “What does it demand?” she asks.
“The bond?”
“Yes.”
“From you?” I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It’s true because I will make it true.”
Her brows draw together.
I step closer, then stop when her shoulders tense.
“The bond pulls. It heightens instinct. Want. Protection. Awareness. If accepted, it can become stronger. Deeper. But it doesn’t give me rights over you.
It doesn’t make your body mine. It doesn’t make your choices mine. It doesn’t turn no into yes.”