Chapter Eleven

Drake

T he next morning, Drake was behind the bar working on inventory, and he was pissed that he had to do it alone. Zeke was making the bank deposit from the night before, so at least, he was doing something productive. Knox, however, was nowhere to be found and had been gone all night. Knowing him, he was probably off getting high while doing god only knew what. He just hoped Knox wasn’t causing any more issues than he already had.

The fact that Knox had marked Amara the night before still had him reeling. He couldn’t understand how he couldn’t see the problems that was going to cause. And because he had marked her, the pull of the bond between the four of them was even stronger now, which irritated him even more than he already had been.

Then, there was what Zeke had told them about her life within the pack. While there was no solid proof that her father was actually abusing her, he couldn’t think of a reason for her to make something like that up. She didn’t seem the type. Still, he spent all night trying to convince himself that Zeke had misunderstood her, but even he couldn’t deny that that was highly unlikely.

Because his mind and his emotions were all over the place, inventory was proving to be difficult. He couldn’t focus. Nor could he get the image of filling Amara with his cum out of his mind. His wolf wanted more, wanted to mark her, but the rational part of himself still wouldn’t let him.

Drake, who was still thoroughly stewing in anger, looked up with a glare when the back door of the bar opened and Knox finally walked in. Judging by his body language, he was full of rage about something too. It was clear that something had happened the night before, and Drake slammed the clipboard he was holding down on the bar, wondering what other problem he needed to add to the fucking list of things for him to deal with.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he demanded from Knox.

Knox, however, appeared to ignore his question completely. “I’m going to kill him,” he said instead.

He watched as Knox picked up a bottle of vodka and smashed it to the ground before he then began pacing.

Drake rolled his eyes in irritation. It seemed as though he was having to have this conversation with Knox at least twice a week. “First of all, you are going to have to fucking pay for that. That was a hundred-and-eighty-dollar bottle. Secondly, you know the rules, no killing unless it’s for a good reason. We just got set up here, Knox, business is thriving. You can’t ruin that shit just because someone pissed you off. ”

“Oh, I have a good reason,” Knox growled, his eyes flashing dangerously.

Next to his clipboard, Drake drummed his fingers on the bar impatiently, waiting to see if Knox was going to break anything else or just tell him what was going on. When Knox didn’t do either, Drake clenched his jaw. “Are you going to fucking tell me what happened, or are you just going to make me fucking guess?”

It was then that he smelled it. Or rather, smelled her. His nostrils flared, and his anger spiked into pure rage as his wolf howled inside of him, either in jealousy or rage, he wasn’t sure which.

He gripped the edge of the bar tightly. “Tell me you didn’t,” he sneered. “Tell me you aren’t that fucking stupid to go onto pack territory.”

Knox quit his pacing and finally turned to Drake, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “I don’t need your shit right now. I’m in no mood to deal with it.”

“God damn it, Knox!” he roared. “Can you for once in your fucking life think about someone other than yourself?”

Knox’s eyes narrowed. “She’s my mate, asshole. I’ll do what the fuck I want.”

“And to hell with me and Zeke, right?” he spat back as he rounded the bar. He understood where Knox was coming from; Drake could feel the pull of the bond between them just as much as he could, but he had hoped that Knox was stronger than that. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. “You are going to ruin everything we’ve built here. You and her both!”

He had said ‘her’ with such venom it surprised even himself. He had nothing against Amara personally. It was only what she represented that was the problem. And it was a catastrophic problem too. He just seemed to be the only one who saw that, and that pissed him off even more.

Knox rolled his eyes, which was the wrong thing to do at that moment because it only fueled his current rage. “Just because you don’t have the balls to claim what’s yours doesn’t mean I have to follow your stupid fucking rules. We aren’t a pack, Drake, and you are not my fucking alpha.”

“I may not be your alpha, but I am your fucking boss. I let you work here and stay with us as long as you followed the rules that Zeke and I set up to protect us. You are dangerously close to crossing the fucking line.”

Through clenched teeth, Knox sneered, “I won’t choose between my mate and you guys. You can’t ask me to.”

“If you want to keep staying with us, I fucking can!”

It wasn’t what Drake wanted. Knox had become like a brother to him, but he felt responsible for Zeke. He was the reason Zeke left their pack in the first place. He wasn’t going to let Knox mess things up for the two of them. If kicking him out and making him leave was the only way to protect what they had built, he’d do it, no matter how much it hurt him to do so. He may be rogue, but he still cared.

All of a sudden, Knox lashed forward and punched him in the jaw. It had happened so unexpectedly that Drake didn’t have time to dodge it. Pain shot through the side of his face, his teeth rattling within his mouth, and the coppery taste of blood coated his tongue.

“You are such a piece of shit,” Knox told him bitterly.

Drake spat the blood from his mouth onto the floor before he punched Knox right back. “And you are a selfish prick!”

At that, Knox tackled him against the kegs, and they both went crashing to the floor. Fists flew in every direction, and the bar was suddenly filled with the sound of skin striking skin. Several more bottles smashed against the ground, dowsing them both in alcohol, and the tiny shards of glass pierced his skin. Knox’s fist collided with his kidney while his own went into Knox’s gut.

Drake grabbed the front of Knox’s shirt, and he reared back, punching Knox in the face with every ounce of strength he had. He had thought that would be it, but Knox suddenly bucked him off and then pinned him to the ground, gaining the upper hand. Knox’s fist then collided with his face several times in quick succession, causing his vision to tunnel.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Zeke suddenly exclaimed, apparently having just entered the bar. He rushed forward and dragged Knox off of him, saving him from losing consciousness, but Knox didn’t make it easy for him.

Knox was so feral in that moment that he even took a swing at Zeke, but Zeke had been expecting it and was able to duck just in time. He then shoved Knox back and held up his hand. Knox glared at him, his shoulders heaving with every breath, but he didn’t move to attack either one of them again.

Drake scrambled to his feet and wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. “This asshole is trying to ruin everything!” he spat. “He spent the night with Amara. On pack territory!”

Zeke turned his attention to a seething Knox. “Knox…”

Knox snarled at him in warning, wiping the blood from his nose. “If I hadn’t, I would have never learned the full truth about her father. Or, do you not care about that?”

“You were caught?” Zeke hissed, appearing as though his own heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.

“No,” Knox replied flatly. “Well, sort of. He knew Amara was with someone; he just didn’t know that I was still there.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Drake muttered in frustration, throwing his arms up.

If Amara’s father had caught Knox on pack territory, that would have been it for them. That would have given the pack free reign to hunt them down, and that was exactly the kind of thing he was worried about, what he was trying to avoid. He didn’t need any of this.

“That’s it,” he said after a while. As hard as it was, his mind was now made up. Learning that Knox was almost caught was the last straw. “I can’t do this shit anymore. Knox, you’re out. Pack your shit and leave.”

“Fine by me,” Knox stated with a shrug. “I’ll go stay with my mate.”

His response made Drake growl and take a step toward him. He was more than ready to go another round with the guy if he kept this shit up.

Zeke, however, held up his hands between them. “No one is going anywhere. Drake, you are not in the right frame of mind right now to make snap decisions like that, and you know it. Besides, you need two votes to kick someone out, and I don’t agree to that.”

Drake’s jaw clenched, and he turned away from Zeke. He was beginning to regret ever coming up with the rules they did, as flimsy as they were. While they didn’t have many, due to them not really caring about rules in general, the ones they did have were necessary for their survival. Just because they were rogues didn’t mean they had to be completely feral.

“Start from the beginning,” Zeke told Knox when Drake didn’t respond. “What happened with her father? Does he know about us? Does he know we are here?”

Knox stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the bar. “I don’t think so. He came knocking on her door this morning, angry that she had come home so late. He practically told her to shut her shop and then called her a whore and a slut. I’m assuming he saw the hickey on her neck.” As he spoke, his voice grew dangerously deep until it was nothing more than a growl at the back of his throat. “You should have heard how he said it.”

Zeke sighed heavily. “I was afraid of that. I guess you just confirmed that he’s, at the very least, verbally abusive to her.”

“I still fail to see how that’s our problem,” Drake chimed in bitterly. “She’s a grown-ass woman. She can always leave if she wants to, but she’s choosing to stay.”

While he wasn’t fond of the idea of her being verbally abused by her father, the person who was supposed to love her above all else, he had to push those feelings aside. If he let them get to him, then it was all over.

“She probably doesn’t want to. Or she’s afraid to. Maybe she believes that somewhere, deep inside of him, there is still some good. We just don’t know. And we won’t until we ask her,” Zeke mused aloud.

“She’s not staying there with him, Zeke. I won’t let her,” Knox stated bluntly. “You have no idea how close I was to ripping that fucker’s head off.”

“And where do you expect her to go that her father won’t find her?” Drake asked.

Knox’s eyes flashed, and his hands clenched at his sides. “Let him come after her. Then he’s fair game.”

“We should really talk to Amara about how she wants to handle this,” Zeke said.

“Because we are fucking handling this,” Knox replied, pointing at Drake. “Whether you help or not.”

It was then that Drake realized that he was outnumbered. He didn’t like it, but Knox and Zeke were adults too. They were capable of making their own decisions. However wrong they may be.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed and shook his head. “You two are on your own with this. Like I said before, I want no part in it.”

Knox’s lip curled, but he turned to Zeke. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, we aren’t going on a manhunt.” Zeke crossed his arms. “We aren’t going to make any sort of move until we talk to Amara. Doing anything to her father could upset her. We have to approach this carefully, but I have a feeling her father is what is making this entire situation between her and us so damn complicated.”

Knox looked away, not satisfied with that answer in the slightest. “I’m not a patient man. If he does anything else to her, he’s fucking mine.”

Much to his surprise, Zeke nodded in agreement. He was used to Knox being prone to violence, but Zeke was usually the calmer of the three of them. “If things escalate, he’s fair game. I can live with that.”

Drake snorted. Already, he could see the end of what they had. The end of everything they had built and worked so damn hard for. All over some pussy. It was good pussy – he wasn’t going to deny that – but in his mind, no pussy was worth losing everything.

Zeke turned to him. “How can this not even affect you, considering your background with your father?”

At the mention of his father, Drake growled. “My father has nothing to do with this. This is about us having to pick up and move again because you guys became pussywhipped. If you think that you are going to be able to kill her father to get her away from him while not sparking a war between us and the pack, then you have another thing coming.”

“Bring it,” Knox said simply with a shrug of his shoulders.

“You don’t know that it would start a war,” Zeke stated. “Who knows, maybe Amara isn’t the only one he’s abusive to. Maybe he’s like that to the entire pack and they’d be happy to see him gone. We have to talk to Amara about it to get the full picture.”

“That’s if she will even tell us,” Knox pointed out.

Zeke rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, she isn’t exactly forthcoming when it comes to personal crap, but maybe now that we know, she’ll be more open to discussing it.”

The grin that spread across Knox’s face sent a chill down Drake’s spine. He’d seen that grin a thousand times before, and nothing good ever came of it. “I can always torture it out of her,” Knox said dangerously.

“No,” both Zeke and Drake responded at the same time.