Page 17 of Knot All That Glitters: Part 2

“So why…?” I can’t bring myself to finish the question. “Coogan?”

Hale winces. “Fuck. He could have barked at her. I should have fucking-” He tosses his head back and shouts. “Fuck!” Tic straightens and we both turn to look at Hale. He’s staring hard at the ceiling, hands clasped behind his neck.

“This isn’t your fault, Hale,” Tic says quietly. “What were you going to do, bark at her to never follow anyone’s commands but your own?”

His jaw flexes. “Yes, exactly. If I did that, she wouldn’t just be sitting there like a goddamn doll waiting to be played with. She’d be escaping, getting away from him, from them. I didn’t protect her.”

I push to my feet and grip his shoulder, squeezing like he did to me when I was losing sight of shit. “Hey, this isn’t like what happened with Janie.”

“Yes, it fucking is.” He scoffs as he drops his gaze to look at me. “Yes, it is.”

I shake my head and squeeze harder, hoping he’ll hear me. “We know where Haven is. We have eyes on her. We can get her out, Hale. Wewillget her out.”

His jaw tightens, and he shakes his head. “We got an invitation to her engagement party.”

My stomach drops. “What?”

Tic’s right behind me, crowding my back as we stare at our pack mate. “What the hell?”

Hale’s jaw tics. “We got a fucking invitation to her engagement party with fucking Coogan. We know where she is, but Creed’s fucking commands are going to keep us from getting to her on time.”

I blow out a breath, keeping calm, even though I’m tempted to knock everything off of my desk, throw my head back and fucking rage at the sky for doing this to us, to her. “Okay, well, engagements can be broken. Divorce happens.”

Hale pins me with a look. “Do you honestly think a douchebag like Coogan is going to marry a girl like Haven and not force a bond on her? Really? Hell, Bell will probably stand over them to make sure it happens.”

My alpha thrashes in my chest at the very idea of it, and I have to breathe for several minutes before I can speak without it coming out as only a growl. “So we get her out before that.”

Tic looks over at the still figure on the screen. “What if-” He pauses, then looks at us with horror on his face. “What if he already bonded her?”

Nausea swells. The signs are there. Haven just sitting quietly for going on thirty minutes now is a fucked up sign that she’s under some kind of alpha control. A bonded omega is more susceptible to the demands of their bonded alpha. It’s entirely possible that Coogan ordered her to sit just like that until he said otherwise. She wouldn’t have a chance to fight it if they were bonded.

I shake my head. “Doesn’t fucking matter. If he bonded with her, it was forced. We’ll get her out and safe.”

Tic looks back at Haven. Hale and I do the same. “We’ll need Creed to let go of his command,” Tic says. “Once he agrees to do that, we can come up with a plan to get her out.”

I nod. “Now you’re talking. I’ll handle Creed. The two of you figure out how we’re going to get to her.”

Chapter 6

Is it Kidnapping?

It might have been a mistake to separate myself from my pack. No, it definitely was a mistake. But I’m having a hard time admitting that even to myself, since I’m a stubborn bastard.

If I’d kept them around, not commanded them to maintain their distance from my girl, we would have been able to keep a better eye on her, would have fucking seen Frederick Drake sneak into the omega ward, would have kept him from getting anywhere close to Haven. If they’d been with me, I wouldn’t have been so goddamn tired. I would have noticed how strangely Florence was acting.

Until that day, every time she passed by me, she’d flay me with a glare, made it clear I wasn’t welcome. But that day, thatfucking day, she kept her chin tucked into her chest, avoided looking at me, hurried by me without so much as a glance.

I should have known something was wrong. And had I been operating off of more and three hours sleep over seventy-to hours I might have. But since I was on a constant vigil watching over my girl, I was exhausted and missed the signs.

As soon as security came barreling onto the floor, I knew, I just fucking knew, that Haven was gone.

I’d barreled right through every one of the guards and found Ren sitting like a statue on the bed, tears streaming down her face and knuckles white where she dug them into her knees. She didn’t say anything for hours, whined when we tried to move her. Eventually, I barked at her.

I’m not fucking proud of it, but I needed to know. It’s only marginally a relief that she thanked me for releasing her from Bell’s command before she told us everything.

The hospital staff was quick to jump on the information, following the proper procedure for an omega in distress, but by the time the cops went to check on her at the Bell estate, she was… back under Bell’s command. There was nothing they could fucking do, and that makes me so fucking furious.

This is my fault as much as her leaving the pack house is.

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