Page 23

TRIPP

“What the fuck?!” I explode the moment I enter the house. I saw Knox’s car in the driveway, so I know the bastard is here somewhere.

As if my words summoned him, Knox opens his office door and sticks his head out. My eyes drill into his very soul as I make my way toward him. My hands fist by my sides, all the unleashed anger swirling around inside me.

“How could you be so heartless, so careless?!” my voice booms through the hallway.

He furrows his brows in confusion. “What did I do?”

What did he do? WHAT DID HE DO?

“ Are you shitting me right now?! How could you send that message to Remi and think it would be okay?”

The rage coiled inside me is a living, breathing thing, rattling beneath my skin with enough force to make my hands tremble and my vision narrow.

I stare at him—this man I call my brother, my ally, my blood in every way that matters—and all I can feel is the violent, electric hum of fury threatening to shake me apart from the inside.

My jaw aches with the pressure of my clenched teeth, my shoulders rigid and quivering with the effort it takes not to launch forward.

Every heartbeat is a drum of betrayal pounding in my ears, every breath a struggle to hold back the words and accusations fighting to erupt from my chest. I can barely hold myself together, the air between us charged and crackling, as if the raw force of my anger might ignite and set the world ablaze.

“Oh. That.”

Knox doesn't flinch. He leans his shoulder casually against the doorframe, arms folded, a faint smirk teasing the corner of his mouth.

The storm I brought with me barely ruffles his composure; his eyes, cool and steady, flicker with the bored patience of someone enduring a routine inconvenience.

He shrugs, unhurried, as if this confrontation costs him nothing, as if my outrage is little more than background noise in his carefully ordered world.

"Yeah," he drawls, voice low and infuriatingly even, "that." He doesn’t look away, doesn’t apologize, just watches me with an almost clinical detachment, like he’s waiting for me to tire myself out.

The wild, pulsing anger inside me crashes against the wall of his indifference, powerless to elicit even a hint of a response.

It’s as though my revelation is nothing new to him—just another trivial problem to brush aside, another storm he’s weathered so many times it no longer registers as a threat.

“How could you?” I ask, my eyes searching his. “You cannot think that answering for all of us is okay.”

“We were all in agreement with making Remi not want to mate with us. Each of us was there that night.”

“Not like this.”

“Tripp, I called Select-A-Mate. Unless she says we are amicably splitting, and they hear it from her, we cannot be put back in the running to find another omega.”

I growl. “What’s so wrong with Remi that we can’t mate with her? She’s beautiful, funny, and down-to-earth. She is everything we want and need in an omega.”

“What’s going on down here?” I hear from behind me, feeling Boone’s presence as he steps off the last stair. His eyes bounce between Knox and me, hesitation in every movement of his body.

I throw my arm out toward Knox, the motion sharp and unsteady, as if I can barely contain the raw surge of emotion roiling inside me. My fingers jab accusingly in his direction, shaking with a fury that’s impossible to hide.

“He’s what’s going on,” I snarl, my voice rough and edged with the kind of heat that borders on unhinged.

The words scrape out of me, nearly a growl, slicing through the tension already thick in the air. The weight of my anger fills the space, making my every move abrupt and volatile, impossible to mistake for anything but barely restrained outrage.

Boone steps up beside me, his movements deliberate, each footfall measured as if he’s stepping into a minefield.

The uncertainty in his eyes fades, replaced by a steady resolve—he won’t let us descend into chaos if he can help it.

His presence radiates a quiet strength, a calming counterweight to the storm swirling between Knox and me.

He doesn’t reach out, doesn’t force his way between us, but there’s a tension in his posture that signals readiness: he’s prepared to intervene, to anchor us if the situation threatens to spiral further.

Boone’s voice is gentle but firm when he finally speaks, a low timbre that seeks to cut through the charged air, offering a thread of reason when fury threatens to unravel everything. “Start from the beginning. Maybe I can help.”

“Nothing will help this! Nothing !”

“Humor me, Tripp.”

I release a sigh, steadying myself. “Knox took it upon himself to message Remi on the mating app. He set up a date with her, and then when we didn’t show up—because we didn’t know the date even existed—he messaged her about her not really believing we were going to come.”

Boone’s eyes shoot toward Knox and narrow. “Please, tell me he’s joking. You didn’t do that, did you?”

For the first time since I stormed in, Knox’s composure falters.

The easy smirk slips, and a faint flush creeps up his neck.

His arms unfold, hands dropping awkwardly to his sides as if suddenly unsure what to do with them.

He glances away, the usual sharp confidence in his eyes replaced by something uncertain—guilt or maybe regret flickering in the blue depths.

His jaw works as he tries to form a response, but the words stick.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, the casual posture gone, revealing a man who’s not as unaffected as he wants us to believe.

For a moment, I see him as he is—unmasked and exposed, discomfort radiating from every tense line of his body.

“It was the only way to try to force her hand,” he murmurs, not looking at us but at the floor as if it will swallow him up any moment to get him away from our anger.

“You solved nothing doing that, Knox,” I fume, taking a step toward him.

Boone’s hand lands on my shoulder, stopping me.

I look back at him and then down to his hand before bringing my eyes back up to his.

When he doesn’t let me go, I growl under my breath and look back toward Knox.

“All you managed to do is hurt her feelings.”

Knox's head snaps up as he asks. “How would you know what it did to her?”

“Because I’ve been sitting in Sip-A-Brew's parking lot every single night since the night we had our first date. The only night I missed was last night, and that was because you pulled Boone and me away for some bullshit reason.”

“Saving my campaign isn’t a bullshit reason,” he snaps back, fury blazing in his eyes. “It’s what I’ve been working toward for years.”

“And part of saving your campaign is us settling down with an omega!” I snap, my fingers tunneling through my hair, grabbing the strands harshly. “We have a perfect omega right in front of us, and you want to throw her away for someone we don’t share this type of connection with?”

“Connection?” he asks, stupefied. “You make it sound like she’s our scent match mate.”

“That’s because she is!”

“I didn’t feel a connection to her. I couldn’t even scent her well enough, either.”

I glance over at Boone, catching the subtle tension in his jaw, the way his lips press together as if sealing something unsaid behind them.

His gaze flicks between Knox and me, heavy with words he can’t quite bring himself to voice.

There’s a flicker in his eyes—a quiet plea or maybe a warning—but he swallows it down, shoulders squared in silent restraint.

I can see it: the urge to step in, to break the stalemate, straining against whatever keeps him silent.

But Boone holds it in, letting the moment stretch, allowing the air between us to thicken with all the things left unspoken.

I know Boone feels the connection we share with Remi.

I can’t be the only one who knows she’s our scent match.

I’ve seen the way Boone randomly looks at his phone as if he’s waiting for something to come through.

He thinks I don’t see it, but I do. I see the hunger, the need practically pouring off him for Remi’s words.

Seeing her tonight, it took everything inside of me not to take her.

Stopping at just a kiss was difficult because the moment I tasted her, I wanted more.

The need vibrated underneath my skin, whispering for me to take more, to take her.

It took everything inside of me to step away from her, leaving her delirious and lips swollen from my kiss.

It’s impossible to ignore, this ache that gnaws at me with growing ferocity each day Remi is not by my side.

The craving for her—her presence, her scent, the way her laughter lingers long after she’s gone—burrows deeper beneath my skin until it becomes a living part of me.

I thought I knew want before, understood the sharp edges of longing, but this is something else entirely: a hunger that expands, relentless and insatiable, until nothing else quite fills the hollow she’s left behind.

Every morning, I wake to the echo of her name in my mind, and every night, I replay our short time together—the spark in her eyes, the soft hush of her voice—fixated on a connection that only tightens with time.

Even the smallest reminders—a stray blonde hair on my jacket, a scent on the breeze—set my nerves alight, crashing over me in waves of want I can’t suppress.

It's as if the world has narrowed to the ache of her absence. The need for Remi grows louder and more insistent, threatening to swallow reason and restraint. Day by day, she becomes less of a desire and more of a necessity, a gravity I can’t escape, and I know—deep down, where words fail—that I will never be sated until she is truly, irrevocably ours.

Knox’s silence carves a canyon between us, vast and echoing.

He fixes me with a gaze that is sharp as a blade, gray eyes narrowed, scanning my face with a patience that feels both clinical and desperate.

For a long, suspended moment, he doesn’t utter a word—stares, as if the answers to every question, every fracture, every ache, might be etched somewhere in the shifting lines of my expression.

His usual composure has slipped, leaving only quiet intensity in its place. In the hush, I see the questions swirling behind his eyes—questions he cannot voice, answers he suspects rest only with Boone and me. The air thrums with what is left unsaid as his stare lingers, searching.

I refuse to give Knox anything. It didn’t take Boone and me long to figure out who Remi was to us.

Even under that perfume she wore, I could scent her.

It’s the very reason he and I are pushing so hard to keep her.

I don’t know about Boone, but I got her lovely scent in my nostrils and now I can’t get enough.

The moment I looked into her eyes, it clicked into place.

She was the one.

The one we have been searching for.

Yet Knox is trying to take that away from us. As First Alpha, he has more dominance than we do. He calls the shots. Usually, he doesn’t do anything that Boone and I are against. This is the first time Knox is steadfast against something that Boone and I want.

Finally, Knox opens his mouth, and words flow, “She can’t be. And all you need to know is I’m not doing this to hurt anyone. I’m trying to do this to save all four of us.”

“If you had just looked at her, instead of being a coward, you would have felt the pull, too.”

“Save us from what?” Boone asks, clearly confused as to why refusing Remi is the right thing to do.

This time, he gives Boone his eyes. “I’m saving her from us.”

He can speak for himself. I don’t need saving, and neither does she. If being damned means I can have Remi, then I’ll make Hell my new home willingly.