Page 138 of Queen of Diamonds

“I don’t want to get in the way of anything.”

“You won’t.” Knight stopped before me, dragging me to the edge of the counter so I was all but forced to tangle my legs around him as he cupped my cheek. “I promise.”

“Okay.” It was just so important that nothing changed because of me.

“I know Kyan,” he said, seeming to see the conflict in my eyes. “Despite how rigid his father was, there’s nothing complicated about him saying he loves you. You’re the Omega he matched. The universe stamped its approval. It’s safe for him. But with other things, he’s still figuring out his way from the maze his father left him in. Wrong turns didn’t just leave him lost, he was punished when he wasn’t the perfect image of an Alpha, and he was young enough that he was still trying to make sense of the world. There’s a lot of shame and fear, even if he doesn’t want it. But what he can say doesn’t change who he is—or what he feels.”

I nodded, processing that.

“Does it... hurt?” I asked. “That he doesn’t say it?”

Knight considered that for a long time, then shook his head. “I don’t need Kyan tying himself in knots trying to figure out how to say shit I feel down the bond from him every day. I love him, and beyond that, no one owes me their healing. That part is his, and it will happen when it needs to.”

I stared up at him, feeling his conviction and peace, and it unwound a piece of my soul, too. I was supposed to be their Omega, but I just felt... broken and worn thin. I’d been running for so long I didn’t know if there was anything left but scars. Would he maybe have room for some of that for me, too?

Did I even deserve it?

“Besides,” Knight murmured. “If he can believe in you for all these years, I can believe in him.”

“I don’t know how he did.”

“You were always special to him.”

I peered up at him, caught a little off guard by that.

“Zed and me, we’re your mates, but Kyan?” Knight tilted his head, eyes curious. “You’re two halves of the same whole.”

I frowned, my mind clawing at the edges of a reality that had been whispering to me for a long time. It felt like there was something caught in my throat.

“We knew the moment he saw you,” Knight said. “Felt it through the bond like a lightning bolt—and he came to life. It’s why Zed locked it down—didn’t let a soul find out who you were until he’d met you. Kyan came home that night—his mission failed—I swear, he was getting ready to kill us.”

“To... what?” I asked, startled.

“He’d just fallen for our target—the Omega he was sent to kill. We’d been chosen for Zed’s pack—highest honour in the Brotherhood, but I didn’t join this pack thinking it would be a family—that Zed would give a shit who we were. Not until that night.” A faint trace of a smile curved Knight’s lips. “Until then, Kyan... it was like he was just burning. Fire and ash, everything he’d been taught and nothing beneath. He’d never failed a mission in his life, but when he saw you, something happened, and I found out who Zed was that night.”

I cocked my head. “How did you get the truth out of Kyan if he was worried you’d kill me?”

Knight grinned right as the microwave beeped. He crossed over to it and replaced the popcorn bag before returning to me. “Look. It was messy as fuck. Lot of guns being waved around, you know? Until Kyan had Zed with a knife to his neck and he told him he’d rather kill us all than see you die—and then Zed started laughing, because... well, he’s just Kyan with a better mask on a good day, and he said there was no way in hell he would let you die, not when it was the first sign he’d ever had that our pack might be more than Brotherhood weapons.”

I sat in silence, taking that in, trying to process it all.

“You brought him to life,” Knight said quietly. “Before you, he was nothing. I know. I was in a bond with him.”

“None of you ever told me that...”

“It wouldn’t have been fair to put that on your shoulders. Would have swayed your choice—and the whole fucking point was your choice—it wouldn’t have been fair to either of you any other way.”

“And then I left...” My expression crumpled. “And he—he almost?—”

“No.” Knight’s voice was rough, and he cupped my cheek, thumb brushing away the tear that had escaped. “You taught him what it meant to love, and then he learned to do it all by himself.”

I swallowed, my chin still quivering.

“I saw that firsthand,” Knight said. “He’s not very good at talking about it, but he learned to love so damned much, he outdid the rest of us. He forgave you first, loved you because he wanted to—because he knew it was right.”

“He needed you for that, too,” I whispered. Without Knight... What he’d said about finding Kyan on a roof that day. I couldn’t think about it. A world without Kyan in it would be cold, silent, and empty.

“You helped him learn to fly, Princess, I just made sure he didn’t go face first into the sun.”

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