Page 18 of Ruin Me Knot
My mind loops. My own thoughts attack me. I screamed at three Alphas, for fuck’s sake. I broke every rule that keeps me safe. I drove them away when all they did was offer a nest.
And I want that nest. Gods, I want that comfort so badly my bones ache, yet I can't trust it. Can’t let myself have it, even when it's freely given, with no visible punishment waiting.
Shame burns as hot as the burn twisting my gut. I know I should act differently.
But I can't escape the grip of the past.
Something in me is broken beyond repair.
A knock on the door startles me back to the present. Water sloshes dangerously close to the edge of the tub as I jerk upright. I slam the taps off. For a second I think someone’s coming through, but it’s only a shadow shifting under the door.
I’m shivering hard, teeth chattering, arms locked tight around the cushion. But it’s better than the burning, the way heat claws from the inside out. I’ll take the numb sting of cold over that searing wound any day. Maybe even frostbite if I have to choose.
"Leah?" It’s Ronan. "You okay in there? If you need anything. Help, I mean. Just tell me."
An ache fills my throat, but so does anger, hot and untamed, swelling beneath the shame. He’s kind, too kind, and I can’t take it. Tears and rage crash together, nerves strung so tight I want to scream at the door or curl up so small I disappear. I bury my face in the cushion, blinking back the flood.
"I'm not asking you for help," I snap, louder than I mean to. "If you really wanted to help, you’d give me the code for the front door and let me leave."
Fury threatens to shatter me into a million pieces. Perhaps that would be for the best. Simply turn into Omega dust and not have to worry about heats. Or Alphas. Or scents that make me want to surrender and wish for forever. Perhaps I could find a flat rock and bury myself beneath it. I could become one with the earth and the worms.Would it be colder than I am now?
Heavy silence stretches between us. I wait for a bark. An order. The slam of a palm on wood. My skin prickles with expectation, braced for the fallout. Instead I hear rustling and the drag of a large body sliding down the door and settling onto the carpet outside. There’s a second thud as another Alpha settles outside of the door, but not a third.
"Leah, do you want to know why we were at the gala?" Ronan asks.
His question catches me off-guard. "What?"
Jax’s voice rumbles through the wood, deep and steady. "Do you remember when we said we do security and protection work?"
Even with my mind scrambled by heat and panic, I do. The words circle back. Military, bodyguards, mercenaries. It takes a moment, but I nod even though they can’t see me. At least now I know it’s Ronan and Jax outside the door, not Gabriel.
Jax goes on. "We were hired by Pack Blackwood. Adrian, Cole, and Zane."
He pauses, as if those names should mean something. They don’t. I know nothing about packs, nothing about who matters in the world outside Haven or Hardwick’s cages. I can only stare at the tiles, resentment and curiosity twisting together.
After a breath, Ronan speaks. "We guarded Mira, Kitten. We were part of the team that kept her safe.”
That name stops my breath. “Mira?”
“She’s the reason we were at the gala. That’s why we were there when you surfaced." His words hang there, as if they’re waiting for it to click, but it’s only more proof that the world has kept turning while I was buried alive. "We knew you’d be there. We were hired to bring you back."
Shock tightens around my throat.They were hired to bring me back?My arms clamp down around the soaked cushion, squeezing until my knuckles ache. The edges of the room blur. "How?"
Jax answers, every word heavy as stone. "After Emma escaped, her Alphas, Asher, Phoenix, and Soren, helped her uncover what was coming. Turns out, Commissioner Turns and Hardwick were working together. They arranged to trade you as compensation when Emma’s previous owners refused to hand her back.”
My gut hollows out as horror crawls up my spine. I never knew any of this. Hardwick just yanked me from my cell and shoved me in her SUV with her juiced-up Betas and told me she was getting rid of me. I had one more job for her, as useless as I was. That’s all I was to them. Something to be traded away.
A thing. Not a person.
They know them. Mira and Emma. My friends who kept me from breaking completely in Haven's basement. We'd forged something unbreakable, the way only people who share nightmares can. I remember our desperate escape, the maddash through forest until hunting dogs made us split up. Running alone, then freefall down a ravine in the dark, hitting bottom with my hope shattered.
"You know them? You know Emma and Mira?" I press my forehead to my knees, wanting answers but scared of what comes next. All I want is the truth. All I’ve ever wanted is not to be forgotten by the only friends I ever had.
Ronan’s voice is gentle when he answers. "They worked with us to rescue you. Mira went into a heat just before the gala, but Emma refused to stay behind. She was determined you wouldn’t be left. They never stopped fighting for you, Kitten."
"They’re bonded Omegas now. Both found their scent-matches. Real packs, a real future. Mira and her Alphas brought down Mercer. Adrian tore her apart with his own hands for everything she did." Jax’s words don’t hold triumph, only justice. "Emma and her pack ended Commissioner Turns. They’re gone, Leah. They can’t hurt you anymore."
Mercer is dead. The thought collapses my mind to nothing. After all her horrors, she’s…gone. It’s too good to believe. That all three of us are free of her.
