Page 35 of Break Me Knot

The truth of his words settles heavy in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

“She's our scent match, Cole. All three of us. She has the power to bring us together. To complete us on another level altogether.” Adrian runs his fingers through his already disheveled hair as his distress pulses through our bond. His scent carries notes of exhaustion and worry.

“Her scars,” he continues, voice tight with barely controlled rage. “They're... everywhere. Someone hurt her. Systematically. Deliberately.” His eyes turn cold and hard. “That someone will pay.”

I swallow hard, my throat tight with emotion. I saw them, all of them together, in that pitiful excuse for a nest in the closet. Saw the map of abuse written across her skin, the evidence of years of systematic torture. The sight nearly brought me to my knees. It sent me running like the coward I am.

“I know,” I snap, suddenly angry. “Why do you think I've been at Pinnacle? I've been going through every legal document, every regulation, trying to find a loophole to manufacture more suppressants. So omegas don't have to...” My voice breaks, raw with pain and fury. “So they don't have to choose between starvation and safety.”

“Cole—” Adrian says calmly, which only makes me angrier. His reasonable tone is sandpaper on my nerves.

“Don't!” I whirl on him, fury replacing guilt. “Don't stand there being understanding! Don't act like I'm not failing her, just like I failed Lily! She's inthere suffering while I hide in the office like a fucking coward. You should be furious with me! You should…” My voice cracks, emotion threatening to choke me.

“Should what? Push you away when you're already punishing yourself more than anyone else could?” His voice carries no judgment, and suddenly my anger drains away, leaving nothing but exhaustion and shame.

“I deserve to be punished,” I whisper, the fight draining out of me. My legs are weak, and I grip the counter to stay upright. “You ask me if I saw her scars? I did. I saw each and every one of them. I saw them and I ran. What kind of alpha does that make me?”

“One who's still healing,” Adrian says quietly. “One who needs to forgive himself before he can help heal others.”

“I can't do what you're asking.” I push away from the counter on unsteady legs. The kitchen is too small, too confining. Mira's heat scent still lingers in the air, calling to something soul-deep in me I've spent years suppressing. “I can't be what she needs. What you and Zane need.”

“Cole, please.” Adrian's voice holds a note of desperation I've never heard before. Our bond pulses with his distress, his fear of losing me to my own demons. “Stay. Just... stay with us. We'll figure this out together.” His hand reaches for me, but I step back, unable to bear his touch right now.

I move toward the door, unable to bear the weight of his understanding, his hope. My feet are leaden, every step away from them a physical pain. “I need to get back to the office. There's work to—”

“Stop running,” he cuts me off, but gently. Always so gentle with me since Lily. Like I'm something fragile that might shatter. Maybe I already have and there are so many pieces of me they’ll never again fit back together properly.

The strain of my absence, my fear, my guilt, is creating fissures in what should be unbreakable. Every step away from them is another crack in our foundation. The bond that's sustained us for years is stretched thin, threatening to snap under the weight of my cowardice.

“I'll end up breaking us all if I stay.” The words hang in the air between us, heavy with despair. Even saying them aloud makes something crack inside my chest, a physical pain that matches my torment.

Adrian's shock ripples through our bond. “Cole.” Each word is measured and deliberate. “Listen to yourself. This isn't healthy. I'm calling Dr. Reeves. You need to speak with her again—”

“Don't.” The thought of facing my therapist, of dredging up all the carefully buried pain, makes my chest tight. “I don't need to kick that hornet's nest right now.”

“You're talking about breaking our pack bond.” Adrian's voice cracks slightly, the raw emotion making me flinch. “About walking away from our omega. If that's not a reason to call Dr. Reeves, I don't know what is.”

I press my palms against my eyes, trying to block out his concern, his understanding. The pressure helps ground me, gives me something to focus on besides the overwhelming urge to run. “I'm going back to the office.” The statement comes out rougher than intended, scratching my throat like broken glass.

“You need help, Cole. Real help, not just burying yourself in work. Dr. Reeves helped you before, after Lily—”

“Stop.” The memory is a knife between my ribs, twisting with familiar agony. “Just... stop.”

Mentally, I accept he's right. I need help… probably all the help in the world. I need someone to untangle the mess in my head, to help me find a way forward that doesn't end in destroying everything I love. But knowing that and being strong enough to face it are two very different things.

“I can't be what everyone needs right now,” I whisper, more to myself than him.

I stride from the kitchen to the elevator doors, ignoring Adrian’s plea. I step inside, the doors close, and I stare at the distorted image in the reflective walls. Inside this space is escape… from this conversation, from all of my past mistakes, and from Mira's heat scent that calls to me.

Escape from the weight of expectations impossible to meet.

Chapter Sixteen

Mira

The slow tide of consciousness returns, and with it comes immediate panic. I'm pinned between two massive alpha bodies. My heart races, my muscles tense for flight, but then their scents register properly.

Smoked cedar and spiced vanilla. Dark amber and citrus. The combination wraps around me, carrying nothing but profound exhaustion and... care? There's no aggression in their scents, no dominance, no threat. Just the lingering traces of protection and concern.

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