Page 94 of Psycho Alphas: Part One

Or maybe we’d never really had any at all.

Knox was really good at playing pretend.

“What will it be?” he asked me. “Are you going to watch him take a beating for you? Or do you wanthimwatching while I claim every sweet little hole you have to offer?”

A whine of distress slipped from my chest as I stared at Knox, afraid of what was written on Rogue’s face.

He wouldn’t ever want me after that…

Never, never, never.

I thought to the way his skin felt on mine as I’d burrowed beneath his shirt. How I’d woken with his arms around me.

I’d be giving it all up if Knox claimed me like that.

“C-could um… could you give me his punishment?” My voice was weak, too quiet for Rogue to hear, and my eyes dropped to the brass knuckles Rogue had dropped on the floor between them.

I shivered, memories of before Ace’s mansion flooding my mind. Of Dan and his pack, or the agony they’d left me in sometimes.

And not just the pain, but the way it had torn me up on the inside, too, laying bleeding and broken from Alphas. From those who were supposed to want me. To want to protect me and claim me.

Thatagony was white hot, and so much more endless than any cut or bruise or broken bone.

And if Knox did that…

I shoved back tears.

I was so pathetic I’d wanted him to stay and cuddle me last night. I’d shivered, on the verge of crying for an hour in that stupid bundle of blankets when he hadn’t, only upset because I’d had a taste of what it might feel like to be wanted, and I’d believed it.

But Knox was a lie, and this was the truth.

He’d just…feltmore like a protector should feel than anyone I’d ever been around. My instincts couldn’t get a grip onthis.Thisreality here, where he owned and tortured my true mate.Iwas a means to an end.

Not someone he wanted to hold close.

I was so stupid.

He hadn’t answered, though, and my fist closed in his shirt.“Please.”

It would break me, but how many times had Glade broken in protection of her mates?

The ones she had now.

She’d rejected Ace over and over, never letting him close no matter how much it hurt.

That sort of loyalty, it was rewarded, no matter how bleak the present looked.

And I needed Rogue.

He was all I had left.

“Takehispunishment?” Knox repeated back to me slowly.

“No!”Rogue’s voice was low and deadly as he heard those words, but I couldn’t look at him. “Try it, Knox. I will fucking kill you.”

It was only then that I realised how Knox was looking at me. The ice in his eyes had died a little. “That wasneverin the cards, Doll,” he said slowly.

“B-but I’m… here because of him. Why does it matter?”

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