Page 92 of Knot All that Glitters: Part 1

Basically, if they bond me, I will have all the power. The power to choose what happens to me, who I live with. And I would choose them.

Over and over again. I would choose them.

“You can stay here,” Hale says, folding his arms over his chest. And that little flutter of hope in my chest dies. Because that was an offer, a question. Not a foregone conclusion.

“Of course, she’ll stay here,” Jude says, still stroking his hand up and down my spine. “We have the best security system in the city. You’ll be safe here.”

“And if I wanted to leave?” I ask slowly. “Stay with Ren instead of here with you?”

Hale’s jaw ticks. “I really wish you wouldn’t. But if that’s what you want to do.”

“What?” Creed hisses. “No.”

Hale sighs and shakes his head. “It’s up to her, Creed.”

A choice. He’s giving me a choice about what happens to me. Not a great one, not an equal one. But it’s still a choice. If I stay with Ren and her family, I won’t be safe. He knows that. I know that. We all know that. It wouldn’t take much for my father to get control of me again. Staying here, it’s improbable that he’d ever even see me. They have a fence and a gate and enough security cameras on the property that he’d have a hard time getting to me.

Tears prick my eyes. Hale’s arms drop by his sides when he sees moisture flood the bottom of my lashes. “Shit, little mouse. Don’t cry.”

I swipe at my cheeks and shake my head. “I’m sorry. It’s just… You’re giving me a choice. I haven’t had many of those in my life.”

Jude curses and wraps himself around my back, while Creed and Tic bristle with anger on my behalf. Hale gives me a soft, knowing smile. “I know, little mouse. That’s why I’mfighting every instinct I have to lock you up in here. I don’t want to be like him. So I’m gonna let you choose to keep yourself safe.”

Tic chuckles and shakes his head. “It’s not much of a choice, though, is it?” Echoing my own thoughts.

“Honestly, bellybutton, if you decide to go stay with Ren, I have a feeling all of us are going, too.”

I snort. It’s wet with tears, but I pretend like it isn’t. “I don’t think you’d all fit in their tiny three-bedroom townhouse.”

“Probably not,” Tic says, grabbing a bowl and ladling some soup into it.

“We’d make it work, though, if we had to.”

“It’ll be better if we can all just stay here.” Creed slips his hand onto my thigh and squeezes. “But it’s your choice. We staying here? Or are we all going to stay with Ren?”

Tic slides the bowl in front of me, and I look down at it. Chicken soup. He made me chicken soup with some buttery crusty bread, because I told him it’s what my mother used to make for me when I was sick.

Being with the Calloway pack is like this bowl of soup. Warm and hearty and healing. They’re healing me. And I didn’t realize just how much I needed that.

I sigh. “I suppose it wouldn’t be fair of me to inflict you on my best friend.”

“Inflict?”

I nod and pick up the spoon. “Yep. Our friendship might not survive her having to live with your surly butts.”

“I beg your pardon, I am not surly,” Jude protests, still draped over my back like a blanket. “I’m a fucking cinnamon roll. The rest of these assholes, though…”

I laugh. The rest of them laugh too.

“Eat your soup, angel.”

I do. And it’s delicious. They all eat with me, Jude groaning as he slides off my back to perch on the stool next to me. While Tic and Hale eat standing up.

I’m tempted to ask for another bowl, but my stomach is always a little iffy for a while after one of my migraines, so I refrain.

“Finished, little mouse?”

I nod and move to take my bowl to the sink, but Creed whisks it away with his own before I have the chance. I would protest, but Jude is already urging me out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he stretches out on the couch with me draped over his chest, arms wrapped tight around me.

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