Page 69 of Knot Your Rebel

He looks in the direction where he threw the razor and points. “I don’t know what made you pick up that razor tonight, and right now, I don’t care. I know in time you’ll tell me, but right now, it’s us. You and me. That may have taken the edge off and numbed the pain when you were younger, but you don’t need it anymore. Not this time. Let me be your escape. If you need to cut, Rebel, you cut me. You take it out on my fucking skin.”

He leans over and grabs the blade, holding it up to me. “Is that what you need? You need to see someone bleed. You need to take the pain hiding in your eyes away?” He grabs my hand with one of his and wraps it around the other one holding the razor and drags it to his chest. “Cut me, baby. Hurt me. I can take it. What I can’t take is you hurting yourself; marring this perfect skin is cruel. I’m not filled with light and happiness like normal guys, Rebel, but I think that’s what makes us perfect. My dark calls to yours, our souls meet in the middle. We’re perfect for each other. So lean on me, little one. So tell me, do you need to see me bleed?” He digs the tip into his chest and a trickle of blood forms where it connects.

“No,” I cry out, yanking my hand away. “Don’t.”

He pulls me in for a bruising hug, and I can’t stop looking at the blood leaking from his skin. Tilting my head, he buries my face in his neck, and I can’t help but inhale him like a drug. Like the one thing keeping me here, holding me down, keeping me from withering into myself.

Gratefulness fills my chest, and the emotions burst like a dam. It’s a snotty, ugly cry, and I could be embarrassed about it, but I’m not. For once in my life, I have someone else showing up for me, holding me close, and telling me it's okay. For once, someone's in my corner.

I’m so tired of being strong. Tired of doing everything alone. I want to give it up to him, the control. I’m tired of holding onto it.

I allow myself to sink into his warmth as the world around me falls to the wayside. His touch is a soothing balm to my soul. My anchor in this furious storm of emotions. He slips one arm under my legs and one arm behind my lower back before lifting me from the floor of the bathroom. I briefly register a towel being wrapped around my body as he shifts me in his arms.

Exhaustion pulls at my mind. The reminder of Nova has my eyes flying open. He lowers me gently into his bed and tucks me in, but I fight him. “I have to go see Nova. I have to make sure she’s okay.”

“No, you need to rest. We will go check on her later. Gunnar is with her. She’s got someone. They’re probably just monitoring her for now.” I nod in acceptance, my head feels like it weighs one hundred pounds, and I can’t seem to keep my eyes from closing. Sleep pulls me under like a temptress in the night, whispering to simply let go.

“Sleep.” I feel his lips against my forehead again as he snuggles in next to me, cocooning my body. “I’ll keep your demons at bay,” he adds. Those six words relax me like none other and let me slip away into the inky darkness of sleep patiently waiting for me on the other side.

twenty nine - rebel

. . .

“My sweet little omega, you’re all mine aren’t you?” He strokes his hand down my bare side, oblivious to the churning in my gut and the tremble of my body. How doesn’t he know what he’s doing? Or does he not give a fuck? “You’re so good at keeping our little secret from Everly, aren’t you? Wasn’t it so nice of her to take your needy ass in when your worthless family ditched you for the afterlife? I would hate for her to kick you out if she knew how dirty you were for me every night.”

I want to cry. I want to scream, but I just lay there. I don’t have any money, no job. If she kicks me out, I’ll get dropped into another foster home, and the odds are it would be worse than this one. I almost wish he would hurry up and just get it over with. It’s been weeks now. Every time he leaves, I scrub the life out of myself, disgusted by the feeling he leaves behind crawling beneath my skin. What did I do in this life for this to be the outcome?

“Answer me,” he growls, his warm breath hitting my skin and sending shivers down my spine, but not the good ones. These aren’t the shivers I get when I think about Drake, when I picture what it would be like to be with him.

Sometimes, I have to pretend it’s him. I let go, shut away my mind, and think about Drake. He will never know it, but he gets me through every disgusting night I spend in his presence.

I nod because my voice won’t work. Words don’t form. They’re lodged in my throat, strangling the oxygen trying to escape my lungs.

“You don’t deserve anything more than this. You may have grown up with a silver spoon, little girl, but now you’re worthless. Nothing but a warm hole for me to stick my cock into. That’s all you’ll ever be.“ A silent tear slips down my cheek. I wanted so much more in life, but this is where I am. A whore for an alpha who wouldn’t care if I got killed tomorrow other than to worry about which warm hole he’ll stick his repulsive cock into from now on.

He starts to moan as he rubs my naked body, and I slip into that space where I pretend what’s happening is all a very bad nightmare, even though I know it’s not. My mind drifts to Drake, to the gift he got me for my birthday earlier this week, to the kind words and the hug that followed as if he knew I needed it more than I needed my last breath.

I wish Drake was here. He didn’t touch me until Drake left. Drake would’ve protected me. He’s an alpha now. He could’ve been my alpha. I don't blame him for getting out, though. I don’t blame him for grasping onto the dream of a better life and jumping in with both feet. I don’t resent him for leaving me behind.

He’s the only reason I haven’t done something stupid, like make a cut I know I won’t come back from. Drake is my sliver of hope in this darkness.

The silver little blade seems so appealing. It could take the pain all away. I’ve never considered taking my own life more than I have in the last two weeks. Every night, it’s the same thing. Listening to the door squeak open. Listening to his heavy footsteps as he crosses my room to the bed. As he slips in behind me on the bed. As he runs his repulsive hands up and down my bare skin.

I know it’s wrong, but I can’t do anything to change it. I can’t tell Drake. I can’t take away his chance at freedom. The chance to walk away from being left behind as a kid. The chance to leave the reminder of being unwanted behind. The chance to be happy. He deserves it. But me? Maybe I’m unlovable. Maybe this is really as good as it gets for me.

A grunt sounds above me, and I know he’s done. I breathe a sigh of relief. Another night I survived. For at least the next twelve hours. He says nothing as he lifts himself off me and walks away. He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t kiss me sweetly.

Sometimes, he reminds me he’ll see me tomorrow, and those words cut like a sharp knife in my chest, threatening to slice me open and let me bleed out.

Tonight, he simply closes the door behind him, leaving me to the twisted parts of my mind.

The ones that creep in and tell me that maybe I don’t deserve anything more. That I am truly worthless.

Getting up slowly, I cringe at the pain. At least he didn’t knot me this time. Those days are the worst. Not only is he here, but he’s knotted to me for a god awful half an hour while I wait for it to deflate. At least I’m on birth control because the bastard has never once used a condom.

The night he took my virginity, he told me he liked the look of my blood on his cock. Who says that to a teenager? He does, apparently. Bile rushes up my throat, and I swallow it down like always. I stride across the room to my dresser and open the bottom drawer, pulling out Drake’s old beat up t-shirt.

I stole a few from his room before he left. I needed a piece of him. I needed something to keep me in the present. I lift it up and squeeze it to me, pretending it’s Drake instead of just a dingy little t-shirt. I cry into that shirt, soaking it, as I inhale his scent and let it wash over me.

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