Standing in the hall, blocking the exit, stood a very angry, very yellow-eyed werewolf on the edge of fully changing. There was nothing in his expression that resembled the man I loved, and I feared that, in a matter of seconds, he’d challenge the vampire who also had my heart to a battle that only one would survive.
“Having a meeting, are we?” Knox asked. Those inhuman eyes drifted down to where I peeked past Merc and narrowed to furious slits. “More secrets, Piper? I thought we’d settled that matter in the car.”
“Your behavior is hardly a secret,” Merc answered for me.
“Not anymore. Perhaps Piper and I will have to discuss the importance of pack loyalty.”
“Except she is not pack,” Jase said, his voice full of a protective note I recognized well. “She is your mate.”
“Knox,” I said cautiously, working my way past Merc, “I’m just worried, that’s all.”
He cocked his head, the movement so alien—so like Liam when he’d been under the control of the fey king—that it made my skin crawl.
“Worried about what?”
Merc pressed his hand to the small of my back in warning. “She told us what happened at your meeting with the pack.”
“And why was that something that needed to be shared?” Knox asked, his attention laser-focused on me.
“Supernatural matters in this city are always the enforcers’ business—”
“I asked Piper, not you.” Knox leaned in closer to me. “Why does the vampire king need to know pack business? In case this isn’t clear, the answer is: he doesn’t. Unless you two are plotting something—”
“We’re preparing for an attack on the fey royals, Knox. We all need to know what’s going on with everyone going into battle.”
His head canted to the opposite side, as though contemplating my answer. “Half-truth. And half-truths are the words of crafty liars and backstabbers—”
“Knox, that’s not—”
“Liar!” he roared, and I flinched away from him. Merc’s hands landed on my shoulders, and he pushed me aside as I struggled to breathe. Too many parallels—too many similarities to the night I’d nearly died—came crashing through, and I fought to steady my breath.
Knox’s wolves filled the hall, but none dared to come too close.
Kat, however, stalked through the pack, shoving anyone in her way aside until she hovered next to Knox, breathing down his back.
“Kat, don’t—”
She put her hand on Knox’s shoulder and shoved him.
Knox barely moved, but it was enough to put distance between him and us. Before the angry alpha had a second to react, I took a calming breath and dug down deep to find that raw, energetic connection that bound us. I hadn’t dared to use it in the car for fear it would go wrong, but there, in the mansion, the risk was worth it. I’d successfully used our bond to pull him back less than twenty-four hours earlier.
I prayed it wouldn’t fail me now.
“Help me help him,” I whispered as I worked to pull it closer, to draw the Knox I knew from the deteriorating being in front of me.
I opened my eyes to find Knox glaring at me as he clutched his head.
“You,” he growled, ignoring everyone else in the hallway as though they didn’t even exist. In truth, I wasn’t sure he could see beyond the tunnel of rage directed at me. “You’re trying to control me. You’ve always wanted to control me—”
“No! Knox, I want to help you—”
“I don’t need your help!” he bellowed, the reverberation of his voice knocking pictures down as it shook the walls. “I feel your magic slipping through me like a thief in the night. I know exactly what you’re trying to do.”
“You know nothing,” Merc replied, pushing past me to approach Knox. “You don’t remember, do you, Trevor? Remember why you left this city?”
“I was forced out,” he snarled as his gaze snapped to Merc, then back to me, “by traitors like her.”
“No,” Merc said, taking another step closer. Knox took a fighting stance, his knees bent like he might spring toward Merc at any second. “You couldn’t handle it here—couldn’t handle the pack in this city. They drove you away, but not directly.”
“It’s true,” Foust called from the front of the group of wolves gathered in the hall. Whether he’d assembled them to help their alpha or take him down, I wasn’t sure. But judging by the way they edged closer, I feared it was the latter. “This is why you kept Mack alive—why you didn’t want to kill him before.”
“And why you didn't want to kill those that challenged you,” Brunton added. “You knew what would happen if you did.”
“Piper is trying to pull you back from the brink,” Merc said, taking another step, “but it seems she cannot.” The vampire king stopped within arm’s reach of the rabid wolf. “Because she does not understand what it is to be where you are now, Trevor. She isn’t like us—does not share the afflictions we do.” Merc leveled his dark eyes on Knox and stared at him like he was prying into his soul—or his mind. When I realized that was exactly what he planned, I shot forward, only to be caught around the waist by Dean.
If Knox didn’t want my magic messing with him, he sure as fuck wouldn’t want Merc’s. A war of an entirely different making was about to pop off.
But it didn’t.
Instead of a surge of testosterone and power and fists crushing bones, a very different scene played out.
Knox’s eyes flared, but then the golden gleam of his manic wolf began to fade. Merc stepped closer and rested his hands on Knox’s shoulders. They were nearly nose to nose when he spoke again.
“You cannot let the power rule you. You must rule it—always. And when you cannot, when you lose yourself to the madness it breeds, I will be here to pull you back. To ground you, just as I ground Piper. Because is it not just she who shares bonds with each of us—we, too, now share one.”
With my breath caught in my throat, I shook free of Dean’s hold and walked toward where Merc held Knox—the one I now recognized and loved. The two of them stared at one another, a wave of unspoken words crashing between them, until Knox’s body finally gave out. His knees buckled beneath him, and he would have fallen had Merc not already had a hold on him.
The pain and anguish in Knox’s eyes were all-consuming when they finally met mine. I raced over and threw my arms around his waist to hold him. To hold him up. To hold him together. Whatever he needed from me, he could have.
“Leave us,” Merc commanded everyone in the hall.
Not surprisingly, they all turned and left without a word, leaving the three of us in the middle of the hallway. Kat hovered near my bedroom door.
“Piper,” Knox began, his voice hoarse and weak, as though he’d been trapped on a desert island for weeks, “I—”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said as I clutched him tighter. “It wasn’t you…that wasn’t you.”
“She’s right,” Merc agreed, “but it is a part of you—one you cannot run from this time. One you will have to fight to keep at bay.” I turned my gaze to Merc and found the harsh lines of understanding carved into his expression. “It will never leave, but with Piper’s help—and mine—it will not consume you.”