Chapter 11
Sarah
The next afternoon, Knox's phone buzzes on the nightstand.
He ignores it. His arm tightens around me, his face buried in my hair, and I feel his irritation flicker through the bond—a flash of annoyance at whoever's interrupting the first quiet moment we've had all day.
It buzzes again. And again.
He reaches for it with a growl that vibrates against my back. "This better be important."
I can't hear the other end of the call, but I feel Knox's reaction through the bond before his body catches up. His arm goes rigid around me. His breathing stops.
"The emissary?" A pause. "No. The letter specified next week."
Silence. Then something cold and terrible floods the connection between us, ice spreading through every warm thing I've been feeling for the past hour.
"He's gone." Knox's voice comes out flat, stripped of everything except certainty. "He was arrested. Restraining order, assaultcharges, the works. His daddy's lawyers got him bail, but the Sheriff said he headed straight back to Connecticut. He shouldn't be anywhere near Oregon."
Peter.
The name hits me before Knox says it. My hand grips his arm hard enough that my nails dig into his skin, and every ounce of contentment in my body shatters like a window struck with a rock.
Knox listens. His jaw works. Through the bond I feel his fury building, cold and methodical, layering itself over the fear he's trying to hide from me.
"How many?" Another pause. "And they're welcoming him."
He ends the call without saying goodbye and lets the phone drop to the mattress.
I find his hand in the fading light, my pulse hammering against his palm. "He's back? But the restraining order—the charges—"
"Paper doesn't stop men like him." He pulls me closer, wrapping himself around me like he can shield me from the world through sheer force of will. "It doesn't matter how he got here. What matters is that he's here, he's breathing, and he's already found friends among the people who hate us most."
I press my face against his chest. Tears soak through his shirt before I can stop them. His hand finds my belly, pressing flat against the place where our child grows.
Peter Mitchell, back and hungry for revenge, with Humans First rallying to his cause. The orc clans sending an emissary. Two threats closing in on Nightfall Cove, on the club, on our family.
Knox breathes me in. His arms tighten. Through the bond I feel his certainty settle into place—not peace, but resolve. Whatever comes, we face it together.
That's what the bond means.
Knox's phone shatters the silence at 3AM, and the bond hits me a half-second later—his spike of adrenaline flooding through the connection so fast that my body jerks upright before my eyes adjust to the dark.
He's already reaching for it, one hand swiping the screen while the other finds my shoulder and presses me back against the pillows.
"Talk." His voice scrapes low and flat. His jaw clenches as he listens, the tendons in his neck pulling taut as whoever's on the other end delivers the news.
"How many trucks do you have on site?" A pause. "That's not enough. We're on our way."
He's out of bed before the call ends, pulling on jeans, reaching for his boots.
"Knox. What happened?"
"Fire at the school." He grabs his cut from the chair and shrugs into it. "Fire chief says it jumped to the roof and they can't contain it with what they've got. If it spreads to the houseson Maple, families are going to wake up to smoke in their bedrooms."
The school. My classroom. My little reading corner, the finger paintings drying on clotheslines between the windows. My stomach turns over and I press my palm flat against my belly.
Knox punches another number. "Finn—fire at the elementary school, chief needs bodies. I want every brother on the road in five minutes. Get the truck and coordinate with the fire chief on site." He turns to me while he listens. "Diesel's on night watch downstairs. I'll tell him to stay put."
