Chapter Nine
Choosing the Monster
Briana
I don’t sleep after Knox tells me I am his mate.
That would require my brain to be reasonable, and apparently, my brain has resigned from service.
I lie in bed with the blankets pulled to my waist, staring at the same cracked ceiling I have counted every night since Aldron gave me this apartment. Seven cracks. Eight, if I count the small one above the window. I know them too well. They are familiar now, which is both pathetic and comforting.
My mate.
The words sit inside me like something alive. Not a chain, not a collar, and not ownership. At least, that’s what Knox said.
The bond doesn’t give me rights over you. It doesn’t make your body mine. It doesn’t turn ‘no’ into ‘yes’.
I close my eyes, and the roof comes back in pieces. Brooklyn air. Knox sitting because I asked. His face beneath my palm. The way he trembled when I touched him, like I had placed my hand on a wound and a prayer at the same time.
I like touching you. I said that. Out loud. To a Minotaur shifter who looks like he could break doors by frowning at them.
My body should regret it, but it doesn’t, and that might be the strangest part.
My body regrets plenty. It regrets closed rooms, red velvet, sweet smoke, footsteps behind me, and hands moving too fast. It regrets sleep. It regrets mirrors some mornings. It regrets the sound of certain laughter before my mind even knows why.
But Knox’s hand on my wrist? His thumb over my pulse? His forehead against mine? There’s no regret. Fear, yes. Confusion, absolutely. Heat, definitely. But not regret.
I roll onto my side and glare at the dark room.
“Traitor,” I mutter to my body.
A soft knock sounds at the door, and I grab the knife beneath my pillow before thought finishes forming. The knock comes again.
“Briana?” Ari calls. “It’s me. I come bearing snacks, emotional damage, and zero judgment.”
I lower the knife and exhale. “That sounds unlikely.”
“Fine. Light judgment. But lovingly.”
I push out of bed and cross the room. When I open the door, Ari stands in the hallway wearing purple sleep shorts, a yellow sweater, and fuzzy socks with tiny dragons on them. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a pink mess, and she holds a paper bag in one hand.
Behind her, Akasha lifts two cups of tea. Of course, there’s tea.
“There are two of you,” I say.
Ari nods gravely. “We travel in packs when men are being emotionally constipated.”
Akasha smiles. “Also, we heard pacing.”
I look down at my bare feet. “I wasn’t pacing.”
Ari glances past me at the carpet. “Your floor disagrees.”
I step back and let them in because I am tired and confused, and maybe I don’t want to be alone with the word mate crawling around my skull.
Ari goes straight to the couch and dumps the bag onto the coffee table. Chocolate, chips, pastries, and what looks like three protein bars.
I point at them. “Korvin?”
Akasha sighs. “He shows he cares through nutrition.”
“That’s unfortunately adorable.”
“I know. It’s awful.” She smiles widely.
Ari pats the couch. “Sit. Talk. Spiral productively.”
I should tell them to leave. Instead, I sit. Akasha hands me a cup of tea and takes the chair opposite me. Ari folds herself onto the couch, close but not touching. I appreciate that. Everyone here is learning my edges, even when I don’t know where they are.
“So,” Ari says. “Knox told you.”
My fingers tighten around the cup. “You knew.”
Her expression softens. “Yes.”
Anger flares, quick and hot. Akasha nods once. “I suspected. Ari knew after the collar incident.”
“The horned panic attack was a clue,” Ari says, then winces. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
“No.” I stare into my tea. “It was kind of accurate.”
Akasha leans forward. “You have every right to be angry that you were not told.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
I look up at her.
She shrugs. “Anger is information. It tells you where something hurts.”
Ari grabs a pastry and tears it in half. “It also keeps you from making stupid decisions because a brooding man has cheekbones and trauma.”
“Knox doesn’t have cheekbones.”
“He absolutely has cheekbones,” Ari says. “Under all that scowling.”
I hate that I almost laugh.
“He said he didn’t tell me because he thought it would feel like another claim,” I say.
Akasha’s gaze gentles. “That sounds like Knox.”
“It was still wrong.”
“Yes.” The simple agreement settles something inside me. No defending him and no explaining away what he did. No making his fear more important than my right to know.
Just yes.
Ari licks chocolate from her thumb. “For what it’s worth, Malichai also tried to make decisions for me in the name of protection. I threatened his favorite body parts.”
“That worked?”
“Eventually.”
Akasha snorts with an eye roll. “After a lot of yelling.”
“Healthy communication,” Ari corrects.
I take a sip of tea. It’s warm and sweet and annoyingly comforting. “Does the bond mean I’ll want him because of magic?”
Neither woman answers too quickly, and I appreciate that less.
Ari’s voice is careful. “The bond can intensify what is already there. It can pull. It can make emotions louder. But it doesn’t create something from nothing.”
Akasha nods. “And it’s not consent. It’s never consent. The choice is still yours.”
My throat tightens. Mine. Choice. Words everyone keeps offering me like little weapons I can carry. “What if I don’t know where the bond ends and I begin?” I ask.
Ari’s face changes. For once, the bright mask slips. “Then you go slowly. You test the truth. You ask yourself what you want when the room is quiet.”
When the room is quiet, I look toward the window.
Outside, Brooklyn glows like a city made of restless ghosts.
What do I want when the room is quiet? I want to sleep without fear.
I want the people below The Marrow House to be free.
I want the monsters who took me to learn what it means to be hunted.
I want Knox to look at me the way he did on the roof, like touching my face was breaking him open, and he was grateful for the wound.
Heat crawls up my throat.
Ari grins. “Oh, that face is informative.”
“I have no face.”
“You have a very loud face.”
Akasha smiles into her tea.
I groan and press my fingers to my eyes. “I am not equipped for this.”
“No one is equipped for Minotaur devotion,” Ari says. “It should come with a warning label.”
A knock sounds at the open doorway before I can answer. All three of us turn. I move toward the door and open it only to find Knox standing in the hallway.
He fills the doorway without trying. Black shirt. Dark jeans. Hair tied back. Hands loose at his sides, though nothing about him is loose. His gaze moves over the room, taking in Ari, Akasha, the snacks, my tea, and the knife still on the side table.
Then his eyes find mine, and the air changes. It does that now. Or maybe it always did, and I was too busy surviving to notice.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says.
Ari pops the rest of the pastry into her mouth. “Yes, you did.”
Knox doesn’t look away from me. “Yes.”
Akasha stands, fighting a smile. “That’s our cue.”
“It is?” I ask, suddenly panicked.
Ari stands too. “Absolutely. We have provided snacks, wisdom, and a safe amount of meddling.”
“There’s no such thing as a safe amount of meddling,” Knox says.
“Spoken like a man who needs more of it.” Ari grabs Akasha’s hand and drags her toward the door. She pauses beside Knox and points at him. “Don’t make me regret leaving.”
His eyes remain on mine. “I won’t.” The promise is quiet.
Then they are gone, and Knox is still in my doorway, several feet away, always giving me distance like an offering. I hate how much it matters.
“You can come in,” I say.
He steps inside but leaves the door open.
“Close it,” I say.
His gaze sharpens. “Are you sure?”
No. Yes. Both.
“I want it closed.”
He closes the door. The click is soft, but my pulse is not.
Knox turns to face me, back near the door, hands visible. He looks like a man awaiting sentencing, and maybe he is.
“I’m still angry,” I say.
“I wouldn’t expect you not to be.”
“You should have told me.” My tone is accusing.
“Yes.” His tone is repentant.
“I hate that everyone looked at me and knew something was happening in my life that I didn’t know.”
His jaw tightens. “I know.”
“I might still yell.”
“And I’ll still take it.”
The words shouldn’t warm me, but they do.
I look down at my cup. “I talked to Ari and Akasha.”
“I know.”
“Were you listening at the door?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
His mouth twitches. “I heard Ari threaten me from the hall. It was hard to miss.”
That almost makes me smile before silence settles.
I set the tea on the table because my hands need to be empty. “I don’t accept fate making choices for me.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t belong to a bond.”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t belong to you.”
“You don’t.” He answers each one without hesitation, and that matters too.
I stand slowly. Knox doesn’t move. “I’ve spent all day asking myself what I want when no one is telling me what I should want.” His breathing changes. “I’m scared of this,” I say.
“So am I.”
I ignore his words and keep talking. “I’m scared of wanting you.”
The room goes painfully still. There. The truth between us is fully out in the open now. It’s not pretty or soft, but it’s real.
Knox’s hands curl once, then open. “Briana.”
“I’m not finished.” His mouth closes instantly. Good monster.
“I am scared because wanting means I still have something to lose. I’m scared because my body remembers hands that hurt, and sometimes it doesn’t know the difference fast enough. I’m scared because you are big and dangerous, and when your eyes go black, every sensible part of me says I should run.”
Pain moves through his face, and I step closer before he can drown in it. “But I don’t want to run from you.” His eyes lift to mine. “I want to come closer,” I whisper. “And that scares me more.”
The breath leaves him like I struck him.
I stop in front of him, close enough to touch, but not touching.
“If I choose you,” I say, “it’s not because of fate.”
His voice is rough. “I know.”