The Shape of Want
Knox
Briana walks away from me, and every instinct I have tells me to follow.My beast doesn’t understand restraint.He understands scent, fear, blood.The tremor in her hands.The rage in her voice.The way she stands in the dark with her chin lifted like the world has not already done its best to put her on her knees.
He understands that she is ours.
Mine.
The word is not a thought.It’s a command.A bellow deep in the marrow of my being.A brutal, ancient certainty that scrapes horns down the inside of my skull as the door closes behind her.
The second she is gone, the bar feels wrong.Empty.Colder.
My fingers curl against my palms.Pain flashes through my split knuckles, but it’s nothing.Less than nothing.I welcome it.Pain is simple.Clean.Honest.It tells the body where the damage is and gives the mind something to hold on to.
Briana’s scent still lingers behind the bar.Pure woman with fear buried beneath fury.And beneath all of it, something that makes my beast slam against my ribs hard enough that my breath leaves in a growl.
Mate.
“Shit,” Cruz mutters from behind me.
I don’t turn around.If I move too fast, I might go after her.If I go after her, I don’t know what I will say.Worse, I know exactly what I will say.I will tell her everything.I will spill the truth at her feet while she is still shaking from nightmares and too exhausted to carry another burden.
I will tell her that every time she enters a room, the world inside me bows.I will tell her that her pain makes my blood boil and my horns ache beneath my skin.I will tell her I knew she was mine the first time I saw her unconscious in Akasha’s arms, pale and bitten and too still.
That moment has not left me.It never will.
I was standing in the doorway of the back room when Korvin carried in a dead vampire by the throat, and Akasha stumbled behind him with Briana in her arms.Blood soaked the front of Briana’s shirt.Her head lolled against Akasha’s shoulder.Her blonde hair was tangled, her skin cold, her lips blue enough that for one terrible second, I thought we were too late.
Then her heart beat.Weak but stubborn and alive.My beast rose so violently I nearly shifted in the hallway.
Mine.
Not a sweet word.Not then.It was a roar.A claim.A war starting inside me.
I had to leave before she opened her eyes because I didn’t trust myself not to pick her up and carry her somewhere no one else could breathe the same air as her.Somewhere dark and locked and safe.
Safe.What a dangerous fucking word.
I glance at the crater in the brick wall and flex my injured hand.Blood beads through the fresh bandage Briana wrapped around my knuckles.Her hands had been steady when she touched me.Too steady for a woman who flinched at a creaking hallway moments later.
She asked before touching me.Can I?Two small words, and they damn near put me on my knees.
The people who hurt her didn’t ask.I know that without knowing details.I see it in the way her shoulders tense when someone comes up behind her.I hear it in the quiet steps she uses, like part of her is still trying not to draw attention.I smell it on her when the room gets too crowded, and every smile aimed her way feels like a threat.
Cruz steps closer.“Brother.”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know your face.”
“Then look at it when you insult it.”
I grunt.Cruz moves into my line of sight anyway because he has never valued his own survival.Same face as mine.Same height.Same horns hidden beneath skin until the beast gets too close.But where people say I look like punishment, Cruz looks like trouble that learned how to smile.
Tonight, he is not smiling.His gaze drops to my hand, then to the wall, then to the door where Briana disappeared.
