Page 19 of Knot Their Safe Haven

The memory of Knox's kiss from today, Adyani's voice across oceans, Malcolm's concerned eyes.

All of them circling, none of them claiming, because I wouldn't let them…because I know the end of this fairytale is just like how these feverish tormenting dreams end.

Nothing but disappointment.

I forced my eyes closed, willing sleep to return.

Maybe this time the dreams would be kinder. Or have mercy this time and let me finish properly. Just give me that moment to find the release that my body craved for like air.

I knew better.

This was my punishment, my self-imposed exile from everything my biology demanded.

Until I finally accepted a pack—accepted them—this was all I would ever have.

Tormented nights and empty days, my body screaming for something my mind wouldn't allow.

THE COWARD'S CLAIM

~MALCOM~

The monitors cast their cold blue glow across my office, each screen a window into her private torment.

I told myself it was for her safety—the cameras, the surveillance, the constant watching. That's what I'd convinced myself when I'd installed them three years ago, after that Alpha had tried to break into the Haven. Protection. Security. All the noble reasons a Doctor Alpha tells himself when he crosses lines that shouldn't be crossed.

But watching Velvet writhe in her silk sheets, her fingers working desperately between her thighs, I couldn't pretend anymore. This wasn't about protection. This was about need.

Mine. Hers. Ours.

"Fuck," I breathed, my hand gripping the edge of my desk until my knuckles went white.

She'd taken the sleeping pills twenty minutes ago—I'd watched her stumble to the bathroom, shake out two of the little blue capsules I'd prescribed, then wash them down with the remnants of her wine. The same wine I'd told her a hundred times not to mix with sedatives.

Same warnings she ignored because what else did she have to help her sleep?

Not us because we’re not official.

Fifteen fucking years of this dance, and here I sat in my office at 2 AM, watching the woman I loved destroy herself one night at a time because none of us had the courage to push past her walls.

On the screen, she'd finally found release—unsatisfying, I could tell by the way her body shuddered and then went still, no real relaxation in her muscles.Just emptiness.The kind of orgasm that left you more frustrated than before, more aware of what you were missing.

I knew that feeling intimately. Knew it every time I touched myself thinking of her, every time I came with her name on my lips and her scent only in memory.

She curled onto her side, and even through the camera, I could see the tears sliding down her cheeks. My chest tightened, that familiar ache that came from watching her suffer and knowing I was part of the cause.

The sleeping pills would take effect soon. Pull her under into that deep, dreamless sleep she craved. The kind where she didn't have to feel the emptiness, didn't have to acknowledge what her body needed.

What we all needed.

I pushed back from my desk, a decision made before my rational mind could stop me. This was wrong—I knew it was wrong.But watching her break apart night after night was killing something inside me, and I couldn't do it anymore.

The walk to her suite took five minutes. Five agonizingly long minutes where I could have turned back, should have chosen to be the ethical man I pretended to be.

Instead, I punched in her entry code—she'd given it to me years ago "for emergencies"—and pressed my thumb to the scanner.

The lock disengaged with a soft click that sounded like thunder in the quiet hallway.

She let me have this access. Let all of us have it, actually. Knox had his codes, Adyani had hers before she'd left for Dubai. We could come and go as we pleased, and yet we rarely did.