Page 15 of Knot Playing Fair 2

SEVEN

Mia

WHEN I WOKE UP, FORa moment I had no idea where I was or what time it was. My neck and back ached terribly, I couldn’t feel my ass cheeks, and there was a cat on my lap. I was leaned up against bare skin that radiated heat like a furnace, and the sour scent of stale sweat laced with bergamot and cinnamon filled my nose.

“Whuh—?” I mumbled, my tongue thick and cottony inside my dry mouth.

The more familiar smells of mown grass and honeysuckle wafted to me. “We’re in the basement with Emiel,” Luca said. The words were barely more than a whisper. “He’s been out like a light the whole time, but his breathing is okay and he’s had a couple of normal REM cycles.”

“Is it morning?” I asked hoarsely, still feeling like my brain was wrapped in felted wool.

“Probably. One of us should go up and let Zalen know what’s happening.” Luca paused. “In general, I mean. Not specifics, obviously.”

The heart-wrenching conversation from the previous night dropped into my memory like a boulder dropping on a mountain highway. I gasped in a choking breath. My heart started to race, thumping against my ribcage.

Emiel stirred against me, an unhappy rumble rising from his barrel chest. Luca scooted a few feet away from him—out of arm’s reach.

“Um, Mia? I think he’s waking up. Maybe you should give him some space.” There was a definite note of alarm in Luca’s voice.

“No!” I said, appalled. My arm around Emiel tightened instinctively. Princess let out an irritable squeak at the jostling, but she, too stayed exactly where she was—half on my lap and half on Emiel’s.

“It’s just that he might come out swinging—” If anything, Luca’s alarm had deepened further.

“He’s not some dangerous wild animal!” I whisper-shouted. Princess made another little grumbly noise, and I regained enough rationality to realize that me being upset was also making Emiel upset. I consciously relaxed my muscles and modulated my voice to a more normal speaking tone. “Sorry, Emiel. Everything’s okay. Princess is here; I think she’s worried about you. Honestly, we all are.”

Emiel flinched hard, every muscle in his body jerking at once as he came fully awake. His breath caught, and he went utterly still. He might as well have been a stone statue.

Princess still didn’t move, so I didn’t either. “Is this okay?” I asked tentatively, knowing that I would have to move away from him if he told me to. Which sucked, because I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to let him out of my arms again.

For a painfully long beat, there was absolutely no response. Then, breath shuddered into his lungs. “N-no. Maybe.” He sounded utterly lost. “Why—”

It was incredibly hard to drag myself away from his side. I felt like I was leaving patches of skin behind, bits of me peeling off to stick to him as I separated my body from his. Princess hissedsoftly and scrambled fully into his lap as I removed half of her perch.

I used the ambiguity of his answer as an excuse to keep one hand resting on an unbruised bit of his shoulder—a single point of connection.

“Because I’m really, really sad right now,” I managed in a quavering voice.

“Why?” he said again, the word barely a breath.

“She’s sad because she cares about you, and some asshole abused you when you were a tiny little kid,” Luca said. He was still sitting a short distance away, propped up against the unforgiving concrete wall with his arms crossed tightly in front of him.

Some of the terrible swelling on Emiel’s face was already starting to subside—alpha healing kicking in while he slept. His left eye was still mostly swollen shut, but I could see awareness and memory filtering back in behind the right one. The teasing scent of bergamot and spice ratcheted up, his pheromone suppressors having given up the ghost completely at some point.

“I care aboutbothof you,” I said. “I’m upset about what was done to both of you! I want to help, and Ican’thelp.”

Luca’s forest-green eyes met mine. “You do help, Mia,” he said quietly. “You’ve helped more than anything else.”

“It’s not enough, though,” I said, defeated. “I can’t even hold you, Emiel. It’s all I know how to do about this, and it just makes everything worse if I try.”

Emiel was still sitting completely unmoving, and I was worried that his freeze response was the only reason he hadn’t shrugged my hand off his shoulder.

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