Page 84 of Ready or Knot

“What’s it like?”

Violet looks at me, her eyebrows bunched, and I lightly trace the scar that caught my attention where it straddles her collar bone. Her cheeks darken, and I laugh.

“Violet has been rendered speechless.” I pat my hips as if my skirt had pockets. “Where’s a phone? I need to document this.”

Violet pushes me, shaking her head, and I laugh harder, my shoulders shaking. Someone bumps into me as they move by us, and I offer a quick apology, stepping closer to Violet.

“Sometimes it’s annoying,” Violet says once there’s room enough for us to spread out again. “But mostly that’s when Dominic is in a mood and the others have no patience for it.”

I frown. “Wait. Everyone can feel...everyone?” That sounds asinine, but I don’t try to come up with another way to say it. Violet nods, suddenly serious. She traces the scar I noticed, but there’s another just under her ear, slightly more jagged.

“It was overwhelming at first,” she explains, her eyes distant. “But after everything...” She shakes her head, looking at me again. “I can’t imagine my life without them. Dominic and Rylan really wanted to bond. And after everything happened, it wasn’t so scary to imagine them knowing everything about me. It felt...like the natural next step.”

She flips her hair over her shoulder and adjusts her bag.

“Anyway, the bonding itself was intense but very fun.” She winks, and curse it all, I blush like I haven’t been all over—and under—my guys for the last six weeks. “Different from my heats. There wasn’t that haze that happens when you’re in heat. But the org—”

I cover her mouth with a high pitched yelp, and she laughs, biting the palm of my hand. A couple of men glance at us, their arms crossed. They lean into each other, muttering something under their breath, and then one rolls his eyes as they turn away. Embarrassment races through me, and I turn away from them, dropping my hand. Someone bumps into Violet, and she takes a step into me to let them pass. That horrible crawling sensation starts along my skin, and I glance back to where I saw Logan’s blond hair sticking out among the crowd. He’s still at least fifteen feet back, though they’re working to close the gap quickly.

“I need to get out of this crowd,” I whisper, running my hands over the front of my skirt and switching my bag to rest on my opposite shoulder.

“Give me two seconds,” Violet says.

I nod, glancing back to Logan again, doing my best to stay calm. He isn’t looking at me anymore, though. I turn, trying to figure out what’s caught his attention, when Violet curses, someone knocking her to the side hard enough that she stumbles a few steps away from me. There’s a commotion behind me, Carter's voice rising above the din of the crowd, and I frown, taking a step toward Violet to try and help her up.

“Red!”

Logan’s voice is even louder than Carter.

“You ok, Vi?” I ask as she grabs my hand.

She nods. “Some jerk just decided I was in the way. You good?”

There’s a sudden, hard slice of pain along my back, and I gasp. Or try to. I twist, and there’s a second slash of pain between my ribs.

“Grab her!” Someone is shouting instructions that I can’t quite understand. “Don’t move!”

My chest feels like it’s on fire, a sharp, debilitating pain tracing up my back and into my left shoulder with each breath. I manage to turn around, hearing Jude’s voice join the rush of sound around me as people are suddenly moving away from me.

All except one.

I come face to face with Harper, her shrewd brown eyes narrowed. I stumble a bit, my head growing light as my breathing shallows from the pain, and she pushes against me.

“Fuck off, bitch,” she seethes.

Another sharp pain explodes across the front of my chest, just below my ribs. Frowning, I look down, confused over the red that’s quickly staining my shirt. Somebody crashes into my shoulder, and I scream, white hot pain exploding down my side as I collapse to my knees.

There’s a gust of breath against my ear, blonde hair falling into my face from whoever leans over me. “If I can’t have him, there’s no way you can, whore.”

Thirty-Three

JUDE

“What the fuck?” Jasper is running beside me, his question quiet compared to the shouts surrounding us from the rest of our group. Rylan tackles the person in front of Faedra, covering them with his body to the point I can’t accurately tell who it might be. The sinking sensation in my gut tells me it’s not good, though. Before I can reach Faedra, Dominic is pulling the other woman off, restraining her in a matter of seconds, his movements precise, a controlled lethality about him that he isn’t keeping as leashed right now.

I somehow manage to get to Faedra first, not that it does either of us much good. I’m a scholar of the ancient Near East, not a paramedic. Her eyes are glazed over, her chest moving with quick, shallow breaths. She collapses against me, her hands pressed against her ribs.

“Call,” I tell Jasper as he moves around Dominic to grab Violet. He’s reaching for his phone when another man steps towards us, his phone to his ear.

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