Page 49 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

My heart clenches. I wonder if he even knows he did it?

But then you get further out, and the web gets lighter but sharper. I find strands of fishing wire and metal threaded in. Traps hidden and left to snare the unwary. The webs become more formulaic, the pattern easier to spot, but it’s what you don’t see that is the danger. Pix is the deadly side of our omega, the one who was honed in the abuse of his father, who learned at the feet of serial killers, who trained mercilessly with their children. The one who shut out the rest of the world and decided everyone but the Sanderson clan wasn’t to be trusted.

He is a weapon, honed to the sharpest point. There’s no sign of emotions, no signs of the omega who spent a week in our arms. But it is just as beautiful as the inner webs.

I blow out a breath and continue walking through it, exploring and learning bits and pieces as I go.

The mystery of our male omega becomes clear, and I realise that Raven was right. He needed to have that control stripped away, to know he was safe.

I wonder if he’s ever shared a heat with someone before. From what I’m seeing, I’m thinking if he did, he killed them before the end.

And that’s the exact point, I realise with sudden and violent clarity.

Pix came into the heat knowing that he kills his partners.

He was fighting his instincts, fighting to keep us alive. He needed to feel safe, and we weren’t giving him that last little push to come back and stay among the living.

“Fascinating,” I murmur and turn, slowly making my way back.

There’s a creek not far from the camp, and as I’m walking past it, I stop, surprised to find Kestrel lying in the water, which is only about two or three inches deep.

I stand over her, my shadow falling across her face. She opens her eyes and stares up at me.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Blaze.”

“Is there any reason you are lying in the creek in all your clothes?”

She snorts. “There is.”

I wait. She doesn’t share it.

“Are you going to tell me?”

She huffs. “No.”

“Why?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“What is?”

She sits up and folds her legs under her and glares at me. “Sometimes, you all being male is absolutely the worst thing ever.”

“Okay.” I don’t like where this is going, but I sit on the bank where I can see her face.

“I was cleaning up the clearing because I want to practice some of those moves Pix said he would teach me. The ones where you disable someone with one blow to a nerve cluster.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I bent down to pick up a rock that was big enough that we could have rolled our ankle, and it slipped out.”

She mumbles the last bit and glares death at the canopy.

“Pardon?”

“It slipped out!”