Page 45 of Knot All Is Ruined: Part 1

Meeting his gaze, I saw the worry in his eyes, and something about that expression had the crack in my walls growing bigger. “Thank you for apologizing, but I don’t think I handled things well, either. It seems when fighting isn’t an option for me, my flight skills are pretty intense.”

Cris let out a huff of laughter, his eyes shining with mirth. “You should have seen how fast you moved. It was pretty impressive.”

Feeling much more relaxed, I returned to my food as the guys started to shovel their breakfast into their mouths. It was like watching a black hole sucking in whatever got too close. Only Cris seemed to eat with any kind of civility. Sorin paused after a few minutes and waved his fork at Victor. “You know why Draza’s walking around talking shit about you?”

“Yup,” he answered simply.

Sorin let out a sigh and set his fork down. “Care to elaborate?”

“Not really.”

“Am I going to have to order you to tell me?” Sorin warned.

Victor slammed his fork down and locked eyes with Sorin as flashes of anger and irritation only Alphas could give off pickled along my skin. “The prick forgot his place and touched what’s under my protection. Now he and everyone else knows better. That a good enough explanation for you, boss?”

“Don’t get pissy with me, Vic. I need to know these things to keep you out of trouble. You have every right to put a lower-ranking soldier in their place, but Draza is your equal in rank. This wouldn’t be a problem if you’d let me promote you like I want to,” Sorin pointed out.

“Yeah, but that means I’ll have more bullshit to deal with and I just want to do my job,” Victor muttered. “This really gonna cause me problems?”

“Depends on what happened,” Sorin countered as the muscle in his jaw started to twitch. This clearly wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument.

Shoving my chair back, I stood. “It’s my fault.”

“Sit the fuck back down and eat your food,” Victor ordered.

I leveled him a flat look before facing Sorin. “I got freaked out and needed to get out of the apartment. I planned to head back to the Med Center, and in my rush, I ran into Draza. He was still pissed at me for breaking his nose and decided to teach me a lesson. I defended myself as best I could when Victor stepped in to end the situation. Draza is an asshole and deserved what he got.”

Sorin searched my face for a moment before scratching his jaw and leaning back. “What did Draza say to you?”

“The normal shit,” I brushed off, taking my seat, and poked at the food left. “I’m a whore. I should know my place. I’m a no-good Northern breeder who doesn’t deserve to be rescued. He was going to beat me, maybe rape me, definitely spit in my face and leave me to die like the trash I am. That man made no effort to hide his disdain for my existence.”

“You said you defended yourself?” Petru inquired, his tone holding something dangerous in it.

Looking up, I glanced at all of them and various levels of rage were written across their faces. “Ah…”

“It’s alright, Danella, you’re not in trouble. You had every right to protect yourself when faced with that sort of attack,” Sorin assured me.

Licking my lips, I decided to trust him on that. Not like I would have done anything differently if I had the chance to do it over. In fact, I’d have tried to find another way to break his nose again. Then he’d remember what happens when you fuck with me since he seemed to forget the first time.

“I kneed him in the balls, slammed him into the wall, and punched him in the throat. I missed the sweet spot but I knew it still fucking hurt,” I answered.

Victor gave me a wicked grin. “Should have seen her, she wasn’t backing down for shit.”

“Seems what training you picked up has served you well, but I think it's time to see if we can start your training sooner than later,” Sorin decided. “I’ll talk to Beth and your doctors to see what we can agree on. In the meantime, we can start with gun basics, weak points in the body, and how to handle a knife. None of those should be too much for her and will get the ball rolling on her foundation.”

They all nodded in agreement as I was left to gawk at them. “Wait, what? You’re going to teach me how to fire a gun?”

“It would be stupid to have them all over the place without you knowing the basics. Besides, in the South, every person has the right to learn to defend themselves if they so choose,” Petru answered. “This is always what we meant when talking about training. If you’re going to be around our unit and possibly going on a mission, then you need to know these things. We’ll also need to cover traveling basics like how to build a fire, set up a tent, read a map, use a compass, and things like that.”

If only they’d known that leading with this part of the deal would have had me saying yes in a heartbeat. These were skills and resources I could use for the rest of my life. I’d expected some hand-to-hand training and maybe a few other skills, but this was far beyond what I dreamed.

“There’s one thing I need to make clear before we move forward,” Sorin interjected. His face and tone had me on alert with how serious he’d gotten. “If you accept the offer, you will do so with the knowledge that you’re training to be part of our unit. This means you will train, eat, and live with us for the duration to build a connection as a team.”

Well shit.

Chapter twenty-four

It was risky to lay it out for her, but I wasn’t going to chance her saying we didn’t lay everything out on the table. Since the moment I got out of the shower and heard her yelling in our home, I knew I wasn’t going to get another chance to make this happen. She’d faced off with Victor, stood her ground, and won the bastard over where many had failed before her. I’m not talking about any sort of romantic dynamic. She’d gained his respect which is what he needed to give before he would ever chance something more with a person, male or female.