Knightly
“Not it on telling the others,” is the first thing Perry says when I get out of the shower.
Phoebe laughs and continues to brush out the knots in Ayrie’s hair. Perry is sitting on the floor next to my daughter, and they are both playing the video game they wouldn’t stop talking about on the drive here. It’s almost her bedtime, and Phoebe only allows her an hour and a half of playtime, but from the looks of it, she’s getting ready to pass out already.
“No. You’re telling them.” I say, drying my hair with my towel.
“Before you try to explain,” Phoebe covers her mouth when she tries to argue. “Not today. You know I love you and that I love that you’re my baby sister. But I need you to go to bed here or at home. Your choice. Shit you can go stalk Vy for all I care. Just give us some time to try to piece ourselves together. I tried to tell you when you climbed into our trunk earlier, but I couldn’t get Ayrie to stop talking.”
“Aww, okay,” she sighs. “I’ll go home. I’ll be back, though.”
“I believe you.” Phoebe nods. “I’ll have breakfast ready.“,
“I’m leaving two guards outside,” she says, swiping up her tablet from the ground.
“Thank you.” Phoebe reaches out to give her a hug.
“Boundaries are a huge issue with her. She’s obsessive.” I say once she’s gone.
“I know,” she smiles. “It’s okay. I love that she’s this invested. I never had that before. It‘ s kind of cute that she’s so aggressive. Jonas stood no chance.”
All of the emotions she felt before are still there. She lifts Ayrie, who fell asleep on her lap. She takes her into the room. Aizen fell asleep just after their bath. When she returns from the room, she takes the bottle of whiskey off the counter and pops the
top.
“No glass?”
“Fuck the glass,” she says taking a long drink before handing it to me.
“Do you feel this calm as well?” I ask her, sitting back against the couch.
“Yeah, this is how I felt the last time, too. Midnight hit the reset button. Your dad taught me that it’s a part of what we are. Even when we hate it, letting go will always bring relief.”
“I’m glad you got to see him as a person. Not all of us get that.” It’s why my siblings accused her of what they did. It begs the question. Why her? I get it, but I doubt they ever will. “I didn’t think it was a bad thing. The training. I wasn’t the only one conditioning. Hunters and patrolmen trained with us.
“I understood that he was harder on me because I was stronger, I wasn’t aware that
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what he was teaching me was bad. I probably would have done it for him. He taught me to love by example. I see it in my dreams still. I didn’t know my mother wasn’t his mate, but as a kid, I developed this idea of what having a mate should look like because of how much I thought he loved her.
“When he gave me that order, something inside of me broke. Everything I thought I believed in was shattered. It all felt like a lie, and the only thing I could think of was to keep her away from him. Then I started learning about who he was, and I started to see the truth.”
“The truth sucks,” she sighs heavily.
“Yeah.” I agree.
“Do
you know when they’re going to hold the trial for my dad?”
“I don’t think you should go or stop it. I saw some of your memories when she marked me.” I admit. She takes a deep breath and sits up to look at me.
“Those people didn’t owe me anything. I’m very much alive because of them. I’m not saying forgive them. I just don’t want them to die. It’ll be my first request of my King.” She laughs, and her entire face lights up.
“You did not just hit me with that.” I set the bottle down.
“Holy shit. You’re the Rogue King,” she grabs my arm and shakes me excitedly. I smile, loving her enthusiasm. “Tell me everything. How did you do that?”
A hot feeling swells in my chest. It feels a lot like stepping out on that stage to be greeted by hundreds of people screaming my name. I’ve suppressed everything I am, and her emotions are the complete opposite. They cry out with her entire being. Where I learned to suppress the things I enjoyed, she embraced them, suppressing the
bad.
“I had to prove that I was fit for the position. There’s an exam, a whole lot of paperwork, and a trial. It’s called the time of judgment. I was kind of scared because I thought they were going to bring up my war crimes record, but it was all magazine gossip bullshit.”
“How bad would it have been if they had brought it up?” She leans forward, crossing her arms to place over my chest so she can rest her chin on them.
The glow of the lights in the hallway behind us is triggering the glow of her blue eyes, making them silver. It’s insane to believe that the eyes staring back at me are the same eyes of the beast that manifested inside of her.
Phoebe came at me like a freight train from the start. Leveled me with just a smile. I am never going to forgive myself for leaving her. I don’t even know how we got here. I never want to think of a time when she wasn’t here again.
“Bad,” I admit, gently pinching her cheeks. She’s so soft. “I was a stupid kid.”
She sits up and straddles me. Her hands slide under my shirt, and the wicked smirk
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that pulls at the left side of her lips makes me laugh. My body responds to the sound of her claw cutting up the center of my shirt. She pulls it open. Her eyes land on the mark on my neck.
The tattoo there is something else and I’m sure the fuck did it so that I never forget who I belong to. I have to admit that it’s beautiful. Phoebe’s name is written in a beautiful cobalt blue with a golden outline over darkly shaded royal blue roses. It goes over my mark. I didn’t want to stop staring at it when I got out of the shower. I only covered it up because I thought the twins were still up and Perry was here. I’m glad she feels the same way.
“I think we should have you checked once we get back home,” I tell her.
“Checked?”
“Yeah. You’re not showing any signs of starting your heat, and it’s something that happens when we both bear our marks. Our wolves were unsupervised for six days.” “I thought it couldn’t happen the first time.” She pushes against my chest. The sound of her heartbeat racing has me elated.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen the first time it happened.” I laugh.
“Knight. Oh, my god,” she pulls away enough to sit on my tights. She growls, covering her face. She is bright red when she looks up at me, and the embarrassment quickly turns into anger. “Don’t look so smug,”
“My hands are clear on this one, Angel. That was all on Midnight.”
“Midnight is a good girl,” she scoffs.
“No. Not even a little bit.” I deny it. She is. That sneaky little wolf is not. “I don’t think he tattooed your name on me like this if she were.”
“You’re an ass.” she falls onto my chest.
My heart kicks into gear when she buries her face in my neck and exhales. It’s been way too long since the last time I’ve had her. Yet, I can’t bring myself to act on it. So much happened tonight. This past week feels like one endless day to me. The twins were gone. Taken, and I’m not ready to be distracted from tracking their soft, even breathing coming from the other side of the door.
Almost as if reading my mind, she sits up again. Her playful demeanor is gone. Guilt floods through me in a way that I completely understand. That was fucked and so was everything the wolves did to get them back. Midnight secured our safety by shifting the threat to the Alpha King for all the shit they put us through.
“I don’t even know how I’m going to make up for this, Knight. How am I going to explain to them what happened and why?”
“This isn’t something we can brush under the table, Angel. We have to tell them the truth. This isn’t just going to impact their shift. This isn’t just our lives. We have to teach them, train them. Making sure they can defend themselves even if something
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happens to us. It’s key to their survival. Everything is different now. They’re going to have to adapt with us.”
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