Page 56 of Knot A Chance

He met my eyes again. “I want him back. I thought I could give him what he wants and I can’t.”

My canines dropped and I lunged for him, the tension in my body from the last two days finally snapping. “Over my dead body,” I growled as I shoved him against the wall.

“Bennett!” Carissa yelled before pressing a button behind Felix’s bed.

I took a swing at Ryder and felt the satisfying crunch of bone cracking beneath my fist. Blood poured out of his nose and I wound up again.

A security officer accompanied by Donovan came flying into the room and broke us apart.

“Bennett, what the fuck are you doing?” Donovan yelled as he pulled me off Ryder.

“This stupid mother fucker is the one who put Felix in the hospital, I know it. And now he has the nerve to show up here acting like he has any rights whatsoever.”

The security guard, who had Ryder pinned against the wall with his forearm, turned to Donovan and said, “We need to take them out of here and sort this out or I’ll have them both removed permanently.”

“I do have rights,” Ryder insisted.

“Come on!” I yelled, gesturing toward him. “How the fuck am I supposed to not kill him right now?”

“I get it, Bennett,” Donovan said. “Trust me, I do. But arresting you for murder is not high on my bucket list, so can we try to calm down?”

I took a deep breath. “Fine. I don’t have to kill you. Felix would never want you back anyway.”

Ryder growled, and the security guard shook his head. “Shut up, the both of you.”

Donovan loosened his grip on me. “If I let you go, are you going to walk out of here calmly so we can figure out what to do next or are you going to cause another scene and get yourself kicked out?”

I growled at Ryder and mumbled, “I’ll be fine.” I turned back to Carissa, who was by Felix’s side watching us with apprehension. “Will he know I’m gone?”

She took a deep breath, shaking as she answered. “I’ll stay with him, but for Felix’s wellbeing, I’d advise you to resolve this. He’s going to need his alpha when he wakes up and I think we both know who I mean.”

My cheeks flushed with shame. “I’m sorry for scaring you,” I said, trying to ignore the apprehension I felt at leaving Felix with anyone—let alone someone I still didn’t know if I could trust.

Ryder wiped the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his hand, also having the decency to look ashamed.

Pretty sure she isn’t advising me to kill this idiot, though that is definitely my preferred resolution strategy.

Chapter Sixteen

Felix

April: Two Months Ago

“I can’t believe you really do have friends. There was a part of me that thought you might be full of shit since you’re clearly a lone wolf,” I said, nuzzling into Bennett’s neck to mark him. I sat on his lap at a table in the back of The White Fang. It was my night off, but apparently it was guys’ night. Bennett, Wyatt, and their friend, Reid—who I’d yet to meet—took turns choosing the location for each month’s gathering. Tonight was Wyatt’s turn, and he’d picked Ally’s bar, of course.

“Keep it up and I’m not going to let you meet them at all,” Bennett said, marking me back.

Since my heat a week ago, we’d been spending most of our free time together, and when Bennett had asked me to come with him tonight as his boyfriend, I’d been thrilled. I knew Wyatt from his frequent visits to see Ally, and both Ally and Bennett talked about him enough that I felt like I knew him already, but I was very curious to meet the third member of their trio. I hadn’t been in town long before I’d heard about Reid Sullivan, the tattoo artist who kept to himself on the edge of town—mostly from omegas who’d tried and failed to capture his attention then spent their night at the bar bitching about it.

“I can’t take your threats seriously,” I said as I wrapped my arms around Bennett’s neck and gave him a soft kiss. “You haven’t said no to me since you met me.”

Bennett shook his head. “This is going to be a problem. I need to increase my willpower to better resist you.”

“I promise not to use my power for evil.” I brushed my nose against his and he snagged my lips in a bruising kiss.

“Works for me, I wasn’t going to be able to do anything about that willpower anyway. Not when you’re this fucking hot and you have a smile that melts my insides.”

A throat cleared beside us, catching my attention. Bennett and I both looked up to see a tall, toned, golden brown haired man with light skin that was completely covered in tattoos looking down at us. He wore a white T-shirt that was thin enough I could see that the skin on his chest had the same black ink mapping intricate designs in the same style as the artwork spread across his arms and hands. His hair was coiffed on top of his head, and his beard was neatly trimmed. He looked like he could simultaneously be a model and murder you in a back alley.