Page 54 of Knot Playing Fair 2

Mia hurried back to the door, coat hanger in hand. Zalen squeezed her shoulder in reassurance and left, throwing us a single backward glance as he did. As soon as both he and Byronwere gone, Princess slunk down from her hiding place and joined us.

“The others left,” I called through the door. “It’s just me and Mia. And Princess, too. I’m pickin’ your lock now.”

“I saidgo away!” Luca yelled.

“Probably shouldn’t’ve started us down this road in the first place if you didn’t want to keep driving,” I told him, straightening a length of wire and bending the very tip into a small hook.

Mia stood nearby, hugging herself as she looked on unhappily.

The lock probably would’ve been easier with proper tools, but these little interior doorknobs were just plain shitty. Raking the tumblers didn’t work, but getting the hook inside the mechanism and spinning it in a spiral popped it right open.

I grasped the knob and pushed the door in. It was dark inside except for a few fairy lights tacked up around the edges of the ceiling.

“We just need to know you’re all right,” Mia said, worry making the words pile up on top of each other. “You were screaming.”

“Course he’s not all right,” I said, becauseseriously? “We’re comin’ in, Luca, but I’ll stay over here by the door.”

I sank down to sit on the floor with my back resting against the wall. It was the same place I’d sat when Mia had sent me up here to check on Luca after he ran out of the meeting with Nat. As she had then, Princess trotted into the room, crossing the sea of cushions and blankets to rub against Luca’s leg.

“Oh, Luca,” Mia said sadly.

He was huddled in the far corner, his body turned half away as though he couldn’t bear to look at us... or as though he was hoping that hiding his face would somehow magically keep us from seeing him.

“I don’t want you here,” he said again, the weak protest delivered in a wavering voice. Princess butted up against him, meowing, and he hunched up tighter before bursting into tears.

“Go on,” I told Mia. “He needs you. Princess ain’t enough to help him on her own tonight.”

Mia made a pained noise and stumbled across the nest to him. An alpha couldn’t’ve done it; after what must have been playing like a movie inside Luca’s head, it had to be her.

She fell to her knees in front of him, taking his shoulders in her small hands. Luca froze, trembling, the seconds ticking by like heartbeats. Then he made an awful keening noise and collapsed into her, clutching at her back and burying his head against her chest.

“Can you talk to us?” she asked, when his hitching breaths began to quiet. “You scared me, Luca. I thought you were hurt.”

He is hurt, I thought.We’re all hurt.

Sometimes it felt like Mia was the only light in the entire damned house.

Luca stilled against her. “This was supposed to be the past... but I can’t get away from it. Not ever.” He swallowed hard. “And now everyone else is moving on without me.”

“What?” Mia said. “No! Luca, no one’s going anywhere without you.”

But Luca only made a harsh, self-deprecating noise. “Yes, they are. Mia, everyone’s falling in love with you! You could mate them. Have a life together. You could have the life that I’m too broken to have.”

Now it was Mia’s turn to freeze. “Luca, what are you...? What do you mean,mate them? I... I’m married! No one here wants to mate me!”

My pulse sped up as the words hit me like a right hook. Luca pushed away from her embrace, just far enough that he could look at her in the dim light.

“Are you blind?” he asked, bewildered. “Of course they want to mate you.” Then his green eyes moved to me, almost accusingly. “Isn’t that right, Emiel.”

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