Page 78 of Psycho Alphas: Part One

There was no room for expression or detail, but the sadness of his last gesture was so stark it made my chest tight, and I realised I hadn’t breathed since the moment I’d sat down.

He was reaching out, begging for help. For touch. For… anything.

But it had never come.

A pit of frustration coiled in my chest like a hot coal as I curled my hands behind my neck a little growl slipping out.

I didn’tgetit.

Why paint this story if there was no happy ending?

When I drew, I wanted to draw my dreams, notthis. I reached out, jaw clenched and heart racing?—

“Little Doll…” Knox’s ice-cold words snapped me from the trance and I jumped to my feet, eyes wide as I caught sight of him. He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, and gaze fixed on me.

How long had he been there?

Now I was breathing normally, his scent was in the air, but I’d been so transfixed I don’t know that I would have noticed if he hadn’t spoken.

“Is this his?” I asked, voice cracking.

That’swhy I was banned from here?

Knox cocked his head, peering around at the canvases of charcoal. “Rogue?” he asked.

“I can see his pain,” I said, glancing back at the picture, the little coil of fury still pulling tighter in my chest. Knox’s eyebrow rose as he considered me.

“You canseethe drawings?”

“Does he hide them after, so you don’t know what they are?”

That had to be why.

I’d been so desperate for the pain to be over, instead to find… I squeezed my eyes shut, shoving that last image away.

He’dbroken in the end.

He’d never found freedom.

Was it too late? Even if I got him free?

But that last piece…

It had felt so final.

“I wouldn’t know,” Knox said quietly. “I don’t make it my business to work out what goes through his thick skull.”

A low growl rolled through my body, something more protective and furious than I’d ever felt.

Knox cocked his eyebrow, gaze fixed on me intently.

I wished I hadn’t seen them—Rogue hurtbecauseof the Alpha before me.

The one I was letting in.

And yet he was punishing my mate for wanting to draw just like I had always been punished…

Knox hadn’t stepped further into the room, and there was an edge of bitterness to that usually gentle scent of ink and antique wood.

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