Page 47 of Knot All that Glitters: Part 1

“If we go through with this,” I say to Hale, lounging next to me. “It’s going to destroy him.”

“He was already fucking destroyed, Creed. And wearegoing through with it.” He says the words, but I don’t feel the conviction behind them, not anymore. It’s enough to make hope bloom in my chest.

I had tried to think of ways around this, of protecting Haven. Including stealing Jude’s laptop and destroying every fucking video or photographic evidence they have of their sexual encounters with Haven, the video of her being involved in an altercation with Luca Falcone, but I know Jude is likely to have a backup of his backups, so it’s not like that would actually accomplish anything.

But maybe I won’t have to do anything. Maybe she’ll sway all of them away from that devastation just by being her sunshiny self. Fuck, I hope that will be the case.

“Button!” Jude yells at the same time Tic calls out her name. It’s not with the same lighthearted tone they’ve been calling to her for the last ten minutes as they play around. No, now there’s a hint of panic in their voices. Panic that Haven must not pick up because she keeps running, her arms wrapped around the football as she darts away from them, laughing, straight toward a drop off she can’t see because it’s at the top of a hill and she’s too short.

Hale and I leap to our feet and take off after her, straining to reach her in time. Jesus fucking Christ she’s going to run right over the edge and break her damn neck. “Haven, stop!” I roar at her.

Hale does the same, only he infuses his alpha bark into it and she slams to a stop, her body leaning forward with the momentum, her feet firmly planted on the ground. She falls to the grass, dropping the ball in favor of catching her weight on her hands and knees, but she still hits the ground hard enough that I see her wince, before she collapses all the way.

The four of us slide to a stop next to her still form. She has her arms wrapped around her head, her knees drawn up to her chest as she curls in on herself. She’s shaking. Trembling.

“Are you hurt?” I demand, reaching toward her, only for her to flinch away from me. “Haven, baby girl,” I try again, gentling my tone. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Her head shakes, but she doesn’t look at us.

We relax slightly, even though my alpha still wants me to strip her down and check every inch of her for injury, for scrapes or bruises. Jude places a soft hand on her shoulder, running circles over her back. “Can you look at us, button?”

Another shake of her head. Hale blows out a breath, clearly fed up with her reluctance. “Little mouse, look at me.”

She takes a deep shuddering breath and then rolls over, letting us see the tears on her cheeks, the devastation and some other emotion I can’t place in her eyes. “You barked at me,” she chokes out in accusation, gray eyes focused on Hale.

Her expression, the emotion in her tone, is enough to gut me. To make my insides spill out all over the browning grass along with her tears. Hale’s brow furrows, and he reaches outs to cup her face, pausing when she scrambles away from him, away from us.

“No,” she shakes her head. “No, don’t touch me. I’m not ready for you to touch me.”

Hale curls his fingers into a fist and knocks it against his knee a few times. “Okay, mouse. I just… you needed to stop. You were going to hurt yourself.”

“By running?” she scoffs, anger replacing her hurt and fear. Fuck. I realize that emotion I couldn’t place. It was fucking fear. She’s scared of us. “I might not look it, but running is actually something I’m good at. I ran a marathon a year ago, Hale.”

He slides his icy blue gaze over her, a decidedly heated look taking over his face. “Actually, mouse, you do look like you run, and I cannot wait to test out your endurance, but you were running straight at a cliff.”

Haven’s mouth drops open and she blinks at him. “What? No, I wasn’t.”

“You were, omega,” Tic growls out. “You ignored us and were running straight at a fucking cliff. Hale did what he did to keep you safe.”

Frowning, Haven scrambles around until she’s on all fours, andJesus,she really shouldn’t present her ass like that to four alphas, but she crawls forward, before pushing to a stand, and finishing the distance at a much slower pace, staring down at the ten-foot drop.

The four of us follow her, standing in a semicircle at her back as she looks at the gravelly beach below. She still smells like fear and anger and stress, but I don’t know if it’s because of Hale barking at her, or because she could have really hurt herself.

Her little fists clench at her sides as she stares out. “Please don’t use a bark on me again.”

“Never,” I agree readily. I suspect this is more than just her not liking the feeling, but even if it were just that, I wouldn’t blame her. How fucked up is it that her instincts, her physiology, mean she has to listen to an alpha bark? She has no other choice.

I’ve only experienced an alpha barking at me once, before I presented, and it was the worst feeling to not have control over my own body.

Tic and Jude agree as well, but Hale hesitates. Haven turns toward him, her chin tilted back to meet his gaze. “Please, Hale? If I promise to listen without the bark?”

His jaw tenses and releases, and then he gives a jerky nod. “But you actually have to listen, little mouse, you can’t just say you will then ignore me when you choose.”

Half her mouth curls into a smile. “I promise to listen to you, Hale. But I can’t promise I’ll do as you say.”

Sassy fucking omega.

Hale must think so too, because he growls and lunges forward, throwing her over his shoulder. One hand clamped over her thighs to hold her steady and safe and the other smacking hard on her ass.

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