Chapter Nine #2
“If I choose you, it’s not because your beast decided first.”
“He doesn’t get a choice.”
“If I choose you, it’s because you stop. Because you ask. Because you came back when I called. Because you told me the truth even though you looked like it was killing you.” He swallows hard. “And because when you touch me,” I say, heat crawling over my skin, “I feel like the touch belongs to me.”
His eyes go black. Not fully, not dangerously, but enough that my body notices. Enough that heat sparks low in my belly.
He takes one slow breath. “What are you choosing, Briana?”
The question is careful. So careful it hurts. I lift my hand, and he goes still. I touch his chest first, over his heart. Beneath my palm, it pounds hard and steady. Not calm but alive.
“I’m choosing this.”
His eyes close and I feel the shudder move through him.
“I’m choosing your touch,” I say. His eyes open and my throat tightens, but I keep going. “Only yours. Not always. Not without asking. Not when I say no. But yes, Knox. I want your hands on me when I choose them.”
A sound rumbles in his chest but he kills it almost immediately.
“Sorry,” he says.
“No.” My fingers curl in his shirt. “Don’t apologize for wanting me.”
His expression breaks, just for a second but it’s enough.
“Tell me what to do,” he says.
The words move through me like fire. Not an order but a surrender. I step closer until my body is almost against his. Almost. My hand remains between us, pressed to his chest.
“Touch my waist.”
His jaw clenches. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
His hands lift slowly giving me time to change my mind, but I don’t. His palms settle at my waist, over my sweater, warm and impossibly careful. He doesn’t pull. Doesn’t grip. Just holds where I told him.
My body tenses and Knox notices instantly and his hands start to leave.
I catch his wrists. “No. Stay.”
He freezes. I breathe through the first wave. Through the panic that tries to mistake size for danger. Through memory’s ugly little whisper. He’s not them. I’m not taken. I chose this.
Knox waits. His thumbs don’t move. His fingers don’t tighten. He lets me have every second. Slowly, my body understands, and the tension eases. Heat rises beneath his hands.
Not fear. Want.
I look up at him. His face is wrecked.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
A broken laugh leaves him. “No.”
I smile before I can stop myself. It feels strange. Good strange.
“Can I touch you?” he asks.
“You are touching me.”
“More.”
My pulse leaps. There’s no hiding it. His eyes darken because he feels the change beneath his hands.
“Where?” I ask.
His gaze drops to my face. Not my body, my face. “Your cheek.”
My throat tightens. “Yes.”
One hand leaves my waist and rises slowly. His knuckles brush my cheek first, barely there, then his palm cups the side of my face. Warm and rough but careful.
My eyes close. Not from fear. From the relief of choosing and not regretting. Knox makes a sound like pain.
I open my eyes. “Too much?”
“For me?” His thumb trembles against my cheek. “Yes.”
I laugh softly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Probably.”
His hand stays where it is, and I lean into it, just a little, and his breath stops. The power of that tiny movement flashes through me like a storm. I did that. I chose that. I leaned into a monster’s hand, and my body didn’t betray me.
Mine.
The word feels different now. Bigger.
I lift my free hand and touch his wrist, keeping him there. “You are my mate.”
Knox goes utterly still, and the room seems to hold its breath. I feel the words settle inside me, not like a shackle, not like fate snapping closed, but like a door opening.
I say it again, because I want to hear it. Because I want him to hear it. “You are my mate.”
His eyes burn black and brown, beast and man both staring at me like I have handed them the world. “Briana,” he whispers.
“I choose you,” I say. “Not because fate put you in front of me. Because you stood still and let me come to you.”
His hand flexes once against my cheek. “Can I hold you?” he asks.
I nod because words feel too fragile.
Knox lowers his arms around me slowly, giving me time to stop him. I don’t. His hands settle on my back. His body curves around mine, warm and solid, but not trapping.
I step into him, and my forehead presses against his chest. His heart hammers beneath my ear. For a second, I feel him shaking.
Knox.
This huge, brutal man who can break brick and bone and monsters beneath the city. Shaking because I let him hold me. My eyes burn, and I wrap my arms around his waist.
His breath leaves him in a rough exhale.
“There,” I whisper.
His chin dips toward my hair, not quite touching. “There?”
“This is okay.”
His voice turns raw. “Okay is enough.”
It’s not just okay. That’s the terrifying part. It’s good.
His arms around me feel like a wall I chose to stand behind. His scent fills my lungs—smoke, leather, rain-wet earth—and for the first time in too long, my body doesn’t search for exits. It rests.
Not completely.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
After a while, I tilt my head back. “Knox?”
“Yes?”
“I’m still scared. And a little angry.”
“I know.”
“I may panic tomorrow.”
“Then I stop.” He says it so simply.
“And if I need space?” I ask.
“I give it.”
“If I need you?”
His arms tighten by a fraction. Only a fraction. “Then I will be there.”
I believe him. God help me. I believe him, and that should scare me.
His gaze drops to my mouth, and mine drops to his. The air turns hot and tight when I think about kissing him. Not because of fate. Not because of panic. Because his mouth is close and his hand is warm on my back, and I want to know what wanting feels like when I am the one reaching for it.
His voice is barely a sound. “Briana.”
I know what he is asking, and I also know my answer.
“Not tonight,” I whisper.
His eyes close briefly, and when they open, there’s no disappointment. Only hunger leashed by something stronger.
“Okay.” Just okay. No pressure, no hurt pride, no punishment for the no.
Something inside me softens so abruptly it almost hurts. I rise onto my toes and press my lips to his jaw. A small kiss that causes his whole body to shudder.
I pull back before my courage burns too hot. “Tonight, there’s that,” I say.
His voice is wrecked. “Tonight, that’s everything.”
I smile. A real one. The first real smile I could remember in a long time. Then the moment shatters under a knock at the door.
Ari calls, “I am not interrupting anything naked, am I?”
I close my eyes. “I’m going to kill her.”
Knox’s chest vibrates beneath my cheek. “Get in line.”
Akasha says from the hallway, “The decoy collar is ready.”
Just like that, the world returns. The Marrow House, Lucius, the fucking blood-ring, and the collar I will wear tomorrow night.
Knox feels the change in me and immediately loosens his arms. I hate that he has to, but I love that he does.
I step back, but this time I take his hand. His fingers close carefully around mine, and my pulse jumps. I open the door with Knox at my back and his hand in mine.
Ari looks down at our joined fingers, and her eyes go wide, then soft, then smug.
“Not a word,” I say.
She lifts both hands. “I would never.”
“Liar,” Akasha and Knox say together.
For the first time since the vampires took me, laughter rises in my throat without cutting on the way up.
It doesn’t last long because the fear is still there, and the war is still waiting.
But Knox’s hand is warm around mine, and when the bond hums softly beneath my skin, I don’t shove it away. I listen.
Not because it owns me, but because I chose the monster on the other end.
And tonight, choosing is enough.