Page 154 of Rest In Knotty Pieces

“So, you’ll do it?” he asks after I’ve turned away. I ignore him and his arrogant tones. I need to speak to Blaze and Aaron.

I get back to the car with the folder hidden under my shirt.

“All sorted. Let’s go,” I say cheerfully.

I don’t offer any more information, and they don’t ask. We drive home in silence.

The first I realise things aren’t good is when I see smoke. Blaze squeezes the steering wheel and floors it. We pull up in front of the house, and I react before he can, getting out and getting halfway around the car and catching him as he tries to fly past.

He screams, struggling in my hold, forcing me backwards towards the burning building.

“My things. My collection. It’s gone.” His scream is heartbreaking.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, baby.”

The house, the cabin is burning, but we can see the open bunker, and the inside is gutted.

Blaze’s pain is as agonizing as those flames. He’s collapsing in on himself. His things are extensions of himself. His collections part of who he is. Some of the items burning there have been carefully carried through all his pain and suffering. Some things have value only to him, like the badge I used to wear on my school uniform. The one he stole the day we met, when he decided I was his. I know he’s got Daega’s ruined T-shirt in there, too, and a receipt that was in Merle’s pocket the day we found her.

Things are how he loves us. How he protects us.

He fights me and sends me flying. I land hard in the dirt, but roll and grab him by the waist as he tries to enter the building.

“No! You are not doing this!”

“You don’t understand; I can’t lose them!” Blaze screams.

I tackle him to the ground and wrap myself around him, fighting him as he screams, tears falling onto my face as he looms over me, straining to break my hold.

“Blaze, think, please, think.”

I ignore the pain from his teeth and when he head-butts me. I just hang on because I fucking love this alpha, and I’m not losing him.

He breaks free of me, and I cry out, but Daega is there and kicks him hard, sending him flying back, where he hits the car. Blaze slides to the ground, kneeling. He looks up through his long, black hair. I scramble to my feet, limping towards him. Merle rushes past me, standing side by side with her male counterpart.

“Please,” Blaze drops to his hands and knees and crawls.

Shit, this is bad.

“Please. Please let me go get it. I promise I’ll be quick.”

Merle shakes her head. No, she won’t let him.

Daega stalks forward and grabs his chin. “No. I want you more than you love your special things. I refuse to lose you. Would you take my special thing from me?”

Blaze stares up at him, conflicted, broken. “Please?”

Daega makes a sound that is sympathetic.

Blaze howls and rushes him; he gets around him, but he’s taken down by Rolly, and then King lands on him. Roseland stands between them and the fire, the last line of defense.

As I watch the two of them sink their teeth into Blaze, who screams and screams and screams. His pain soaks the forest, soaks everything, but he holds four bonds, and he can’t fight us now.

We get him in the car, where Merle curls up with him and strokes his hair.

“What is wrong with him?” Roseland asks under his breath, glancing at the sobbing alpha.

“Blaze is Kota’s older brother,” I say under my breath. “But they don’t have the same dad, and Blaze’s dad is cruel. He kept him down in the dark, in a box, a little room. He would give him things and then destroy them, crush them. Sometimes animals. Once he gave Blaze a friend. A little boy to play with.”