Tipping The Scales: Knox (Mate Craze)(37)

Okay, maybe not a bomb as much as what I already knew.

“That explains nothing.” Defeat soaked into me. Maybe it didn’t matter anyway. I picked at the polish on my nail, glad the dimly lit area didn’t allow me to see the destruction I was making to the fancy flowers Rhi had managed to paint on them.

“She thought you were going to be like him. Instead she said fate had you set to be half of a pair.”

Crap on a cracker. She knew about Knox. Gran freaking knew? How? And possibly more important, why did she think it so horrible?

“So, she didn’t want me married?” I fished for answers, hoping my faux confusion actually sounded sincere.

“You know what? I don’t want to talk about her. She might not have been crazy, but it didn’t mean she was nice.”

That was a truth bomb if I ever heard it. My Gran could be out and out cruel, and more than once I was sure she enjoyed it.

“So you’re not going to answer,” I clarified, more to myself than to her. It wasn’t a question. She was done.

“Fine.” And with that one word a bit of hope for answers grew inside me. “I think she thought you were going to end up like me.”

“That makes no sense.” I turned the ignition. I was good enough to drive, and after I hung up I was going to make my way back to Knox and… I didn’t know what, but I was going to make it right.

“Your father was my mate. He died. End of story.”

And there it was. The bomb I was expecting, and yet it was nothing like I could have possibly expected. All my life I knew my father freaking left me. My mom, the single mom by asshole, not choice. What the heck was I supposed to do with that information?

“Died?” I swallowed, the words bitter in my mouth.

“I’m sorry I never told you.” Sincerity flowed through the phone and right past me because this was not something to simply let slide by. My father, who I painted as this evil person all these years was dead. Not gone with some side chick in every town gone, but six feet under gone.

“Sorry?” My voice cracked. “Fuck you, Mom. Fuck everyone with all their stupid secrets. I need to go.”

It was all too much. The entire day was too much. I needed… I had no idea what I needed, but I needed it now. Actually I knew what I needed, and as stupid as it sounded to even my own ears, it was Knox’s arms wrapped around me.

“I love you.” I heard her say as I hung up the phone, threw it on the passenger side floor, and began to back out onto the road. If my inner navigation system was accurate, I could be in Knox’s arms in less than five minute. I didn’t care if begging was required. Whatever it took to get a second chance, I was willing to do it.

Unfortunately, in all my determination I forgot to do one simple thing: look for traffic. The last thing I saw before everything went black was a light blinding me as the sound of metal crumpling filled my ears.





15





Knox





There wasn’t a dish in my house that hadn’t been smashed in the time since Kallie left. I could’ve easily blamed it on the Mate Craze, which felt like an infection, that while hovering in Kallie’s presence had now settled into my bone marrow for the long haul.

It didn’t matter. None of it fucking mattered without her in my life. This house would rot beneath my feet. Earth would keep turning along with my mind turning to ash and beast. Her life would go on, and one day she wouldn’t think of me anymore, maybe when Rhi reminded her of that spring break where she visited that small town.

I pushed the refrigerator over just to prove my point, watching the contents spill out, like my sanity would spill out sooner than later.

One day I would simply turn into my dragon and never turn back.

He would rather I found Kallie.

My dragon was clawing me open from the inside, begging me to get free, begging me to bring her back. He could do what he wanted—chew on my bones, gnaw at my organs—he wasn’t getting his way this time, and the beast would just have to deal with it. His vision and words to me were clouded by his rage and his undying mourning for the mate that could’ve completed our existence.

Exhausted from the mental anguish and needing anything to help, I laid on the floor, cool and inviting, to clear my head. There, I could close my eyes against the pressing pain between my temples and the wringing inside of my chest.

A vision of Kallie came to my mind. The tears rivering down her face. The impact of my words grasping her consciousness. The betrayal was written in her stare and in the cries from her throat.

If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought the female really did love me and wanted to be my mate, not to save me, but because she wanted a life with me.

What else was I supposed to do? I wasn’t going to do that to her. I loved her. When you love someone, you do what’s best for them, despite yourself.

One day she would’ve hated me.

Whether it came with old age or tired bones, she would look at me one day, and maybe not out loud, but she would say to herself that she should’ve run while she could. She should’ve never come to this town. She should’ve never gotten in my truck or sat at the table with me that night at the diner.

When she looked at her mate, the only thing she would be able to see and feel would be regret. It would eat her alive.