Page 169 of Knot So Fast
The one Alpha who, no matter how many times I shut him out, always finds a way to get through.
The one who never yells, never breaks things, never loses control the way his brother does.
The one whose calm is somehow more devastating than Lucius's rage because it makes me want to lean into it, trust it, believe that maybe not everything has to be a battlefield.
My fingers press the button before my mind can catch up, muscle memory overriding logic.
Before I can speak, there's his voice filling the car—velvet and firm and so different from his twin brother because it's not laced with pulverizing anger. It's laced with a level of calm that only riles me up even more because how dare he be steady when I'm falling apart?
"Where are you?"
Three simple words, but they hit me.
I want to laugh at the audacity of the question, at the assumption that I owe him an answer when his brother just?—
The sound that leaves my trembling lips is caught somewhere between a sob and pure audacity.
I don't know if it's tears or blood running down my cheek now—probably both—but my whole body is shaking and I can't fucking answer. The words are stuck in my throat like glass shards.
"Auren, baby." His voice drops lower, more commanding, with that Alpha authority that makes my Omega want to roll over and submit even when every other part of me is screaming rebellion. "If my brother lost his shit and hurt you, I'll kill him with my bare hands. But I need you to bealivewhen I reach you, so you're going to pull the car over and wait for me to get to you. Understand?"
I understand.
The words echo in my head, but I can't make my mouth form them.
He knows I understand—he can probably hear it in my breathing, in the way the engine noise changes as I unconsciously ease off the gas at the sound of his voice. But maybe it's the hyperventilating that's frightening him. Or me.
The speedometer drops to 110, then 100. Still way too fast for these roads, but something about his voice makes my foot want to cooperate.
"Baby girl," he's pleading now, and that breaks something in me because Lachlan Wolfe doesn't plead.He commands. He takes charge.He fixes things with that infuriating calm competence that makes me want to either worship him or destroy him. "Come back to me. Please."
I've heard him beg exactly twice in this lifetime.
Once when I was sixteen, having drowned and been brought back to life over a stupid dare gone wrong—him pounding onmy chest, breathing life back into my lungs while tears streamed down his face. Once when I almost lost it all on the track when I was close to being burned to ash, trapped in a car that was becoming my funeral pyre until he pulled me out with his bare hands.
Both life-and-death situations.
Ironic.
"I can't—" The words finally break free, raw and broken. "I can't stop. If I stop, I'll?—"
"You'll what, baby? Tell me."
"I'll fall apart." The admission tears from my throat like it's taking pieces of me with it. "And I can't. I can't fall apart again. Not over him. Not over any of you."
Before he can answer, I notice them in my rearview mirror—four cars that definitely weren't there a moment ago, moving in perfect formation like they're hunting something. Like they're huntingme. I press the gas harder, watching the speedometer climb again, but they keep pace effortlessly.
"Lachlan," I whisper, my voice barely audible over the engine noise. "Something's wrong."
"What do you mean? Talk to me, Auren."
Four cars race past me in formation, making me suddenly aware that I'm going over 140 mph and these aren't just random drivers out for a midnight joyride.These are professionals.The way they move, the way they coordinate—this is planned.
"What the..." I begin, but then the front car suddenly brakes hard, forcing me to slam my own brakes.
The Ferrari's anti-lock system kicks in, but I'm going too fast, the road is too narrow, and I'm boxed in on all sides.
They hit me from the left first—just a nudge, but at this speed it's enough to send me into a skid. I fight for control, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, years of racing experience kicking in as I try to correct the slide.
