Page 19 of Knot My MC
Grabbing his shirt, I shake him. “Where is he?”
Forest’s large hands close around mine. “He’s gone, Kiki.”
“Gone?” I whisper, fisting more of Forest’s shirt in my hands. “What do you meangone?” I snarl, shoving him away. “He wouldn’t leave me.”
“Kiki, don’t be stupid,” Axel grunts.
Is it so wrong to hope? The alternative is… a reality I’m not ready to face.
I whirl around and storm toward him. Axel holds his hand up.
“Stop.” His alpha command slams into me, throwing me back to that night I caught him in my room all those years ago.
I carefully avoided that space in the clubhouse after that incident, and I only went to bed once Dad was ready too, staying on the small cot he set up in his room. He never asked me about Axel again, but I noticed him keeping a closer watch on me when the alpha was near.
Axel never commanded me again.
Until now.
“Kiren is dead, Kiki. Shit happens when you live the MC life. Don’t dishonor his memory by acting like a dramatic bitch in heat.”
I suck in a sharp breath, curling my fingers into fists and seething. “Fuck you, Axel.”
He scoffs. “That’s your one pass. I know you’re hurting, but you’re a grown woman. Act like it.”
Grown? I just turned twenty-one yesterday. My brain won’t fully develop for at least a few more years and there is no reasonable reaction to learning about the death of someone you love, but I don’t bother explaining that to him. He wouldn’t understand, just like he wouldn’t understand why forcing me to watch him fuck someone when I was only seventeen was disgusting.
“Come on, Ax,” Vermont murmurs, shoulder brushing against mine. He was one of Dad’s friends.
“No, Vermont. She needs to harden up. Her dad made her soft and he’s not here to protect her anymore.” Axel climbs off his bike and walks toward me. “Our little Kiki needs an alpha.” He reaches up to toy with a strand of my hair.
My throat constricts and my stomach turns. “Like hell,” I spit, slapping his hand away.
Axel growls at me.
Fuck him.
“She’s set to be matched at the Compatibility Ceremony tomorrow night. She’ll find a pack then,” Forest says, stepping to stand on my other side. “She can’t be yours.”
The ceremony.Shit.
Axel glares at Forest. “Says who?”
It’s true. The biggest night of my life is tomorrow, but with Dad gone, it seems pointless. He won’t live to see me make good on my promise to give a new pack hell. He won’t get to meet my pack and threaten to hurt them if they break my heart. I won’t get to hug him ever again. A cry lodges in my throat and while everyone tries to reason with Axel, all I want to do is scream at the injustice of Dad’s death.
“She’s Kiren’s kid, for fuck’s sake,” Forest says.
A gun fires before my mind can even process Axel pulling it out and pointing it. Vermont takes a few quick steps back, abandoning me as Forest collapses to the ground with a scream. Axel points the gun at Vermont, then swings it around to warn off the rest of the club members. They say you learn who your friends truly are in life or death situations. I have none.
I’m alone.
When the barrel lines up with my face, my cheeks are damp.
“Aw, sweetheart. I promise to be nice.”
Forest is whimpering on the ground, clutching his leg. There’s so much blood.
Swallowing back the tears, I shake my head. “Camila won’t let you—”
