Page 27 of Claimed By the Damned

Knox was so feral in that moment that he even took a swing at Zeke, but Zeke had been expecting it and was able to duck just in time. He then shoved Knox back and held up his hand. Knox glared at him, his shoulders heaving with every breath, but he didn’t move to attack either one of them again.

Drake scrambled to his feet and wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. “This asshole is trying to ruin everything!” he spat. “He spent the night with Amara. On pack territory!”

Zeke turned his attention to a seething Knox. “Knox…”

Knox snarled at him in warning, wiping the blood from his nose. “If I hadn’t, I would have never learned the full truth about her father. Or, do you not care about that?”

“You were caught?” Zeke hissed, appearing as though his own heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.

“No,” Knox replied flatly. “Well, sort of. He knew Amara was with someone; he just didn’t know that I was still there.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Drake muttered in frustration, throwing his arms up.

If Amara’s father had caught Knox on pack territory, that would have been it for them. That would have given the pack free reign to hunt them down, and that was exactly the kind of thing he was worried about, what he was trying to avoid. He didn’t need any of this.

“That’s it,” he said after a while. As hard as it was, his mind was now made up. Learning that Knox was almost caught was the last straw. “I can’t do this shit anymore. Knox, you’re out. Pack your shit and leave.”

“Fine by me,” Knox stated with a shrug. “I’ll go stay with my mate.”

His response made Drake growl and take a step toward him. He was more than ready to go another round with the guy if he kept this shit up.

Zeke, however, held up his hands between them. “No one is going anywhere. Drake, you are not in the right frame of mind right now to make snap decisions like that, and you know it. Besides, you need two votes to kick someone out, and I don’t agree to that.”

Drake’s jaw clenched, and he turned away from Zeke. He was beginning to regret ever coming up with the rules they did, as flimsy as they were. While they didn’t have many, due to them not really caring about rules in general, the ones they did have were necessary for their survival. Just because they were rogues didn’t mean they had to be completely feral.

“Start from the beginning,” Zeke told Knox when Drake didn’t respond. “What happened with her father? Does he know about us? Does he know we are here?”

Knox stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the bar. “I don’t think so. He came knocking on her door this morning, angry that she had come home so late. He practically told her to shut her shop and then called her a whore and a slut. I’m assuming he saw the hickey on her neck.” As he spoke, his voice grew dangerously deep until it was nothing more than a growl at the back of his throat. “You should have heard how he said it.”

Zeke sighed heavily. “I was afraid of that. I guess you just confirmed that he’s, at the very least, verbally abusive to her.”

“I still fail to see how that’s our problem,” Drake chimed in bitterly. “She’s a grown-ass woman. She can always leave if she wants to, but she’s choosing to stay.”

While he wasn’t fond of the idea of her being verbally abused by her father, the person who was supposed to love her above all else, he had to push those feelings aside. If he let them get to him, then it was all over.

“She probably doesn’t want to. Or she’s afraid to. Maybe she believes that somewhere, deep inside of him, there is still some good. We just don’t know. And we won’t until we ask her,” Zeke mused aloud.

“She’s not staying there with him, Zeke. I won’t let her,” Knox stated bluntly. “You have no idea how close I was to ripping that fucker’s head off.”

“And where do you expect her to go that her father won’t find her?” Drake asked.

Knox’s eyes flashed, and his hands clenched at his sides. “Let him come after her. Then he’s fair game.”

“We should really talk to Amara about how she wants to handle this,” Zeke said.

“Because we are fucking handling this,” Knox replied, pointing at Drake. “Whether you help or not.”

It was then that Drake realized that he was outnumbered. He didn’t like it, but Knox and Zeke were adults too. They were capable of making their own decisions. However wrong they may be.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed and shook his head. “You two are on your own with this. Like I said before, I want no part in it.”

Knox’s lip curled, but he turned to Zeke. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, we aren’t going on a manhunt.” Zeke crossed his arms. “We aren’t going to make any sort of move until we talk to Amara. Doing anything to her father could upset her. We have to approach this carefully, but I have a feeling her father is what is making this entire situation between her and us so damn complicated.”

Knox looked away, not satisfied with that answer in the slightest. “I’m not a patient man. If he does anything else to her, he’s fucking mine.”

Much to his surprise, Zeke nodded in agreement. He was used to Knox being prone to violence, but Zeke was usually the calmer of the three of them. “If things escalate, he’s fair game. I can live with that.”

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