Page 39 of Knot Your Basic B*tch

“Yeah, hold on.” I pulled out my phone and clicked straight to the contacts.

Me: Hey

Kain: Hey yourself, Gorgeous

Me: So why are we not talking about Brutus?

A bubble with three lines popped up on the bottom of my screen and then disappeared.

The fact that there was a whole alpha in their pack that I’d never seen was… honestly kind of weird. I’d gone to their pack house multiple times, and I’d never even spoken to him. Hell, I’d slept with most of my scent matches and then there was one that I hadn’t even spoken to. I didn’t even know what he looked like. It was almost like they were hiding him.

Me: Is Brutus a cannibal serial killer or something?

Out of the corner of my eyes, I was tracking Nyle, to see if he was starting to get agitated with the silent treatment—but no. Nyle was using the lull in the conversation to patiently eat his sandwich. He looked ready to wait for me to finish what I was doing, without interrupting me even a little.

Okay. Either he was even more malicious than any other alpha I’d interviewed before, masking the depths of his depravity and evil… or he was potentially a nice guy. I grit my teeth. If this guy was an asshole, I’d find out soon enough. There was no hiding from my red flag checklist.

Kain: Brutus is hot enough to be a maneater, but he’s not a cannibal

Apparently, Kain thought that wasn’t an appropriate reply, as the next two texts came in rapid fire.

Kain: We didn’t want to overwhelm you with all of us at once.

Kain: He’s looking forward to meeting you.

Hot enough to be a man eater? Was that supposed to be a compliment? Wait. What exactly was a man eater? Was it some kind of sexual thing about eating men? Whatever. It wasn’t in the Institute approved curriculum, so it couldn’t be all that important.

Me: Is he free this weekend?

Kain: Hold on, I’ll go ask him

Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that Nyle was getting a bit fidgety. He was almost finished with his sandwich.

If he was going to get pissy with me, he would have done it already.

Fine.

I’d tentatively cross anger issues off the red flag checklist.

What was the next thing on my list? Oh yes. I’d see if Nyle could respect personal boundaries. I’d give him a weird one and see if he would feel tempted to violate it.

“I don’t feel comfortable eating when someone else’s tray is too close. Would you mind giving me a little bit of space?”

Nyle raised an eyebrow, and shifted his tray back an inch. He didn’t say a word about how there was already over a foot between our lunch trays.

“Thank you,” I had a demure smile on my face.

Damn it.

Thought I would get him with that one. Okay, so obviously Nyle didn’t have problems with respecting boundaries. But he had to have something wrong with him. There was no way that Titus managed to find someone this attractive, with not a single red flag to speak of. It was mathematically impossible.

Alright, I had time during this interview for one more test. It was time to check if Nyle was a covert sociopath, or at very least a narcissist.

“All my classes are really cutting into my time for hobbies. I haven’t been able to read anything for fun in weeks.” I had googled enough about mirroring to know that everyone did it to an extent. But no one did it with the same intensity as a sociopath—all to create intense feelings of connection in their victim, just to manipulate them.

“Oh, you like reading? What books do you like to read?” Nyle asked me politely.

“The last book I got to read was a romance with a werewolf pirate, and his adventures in gettingallof the booty. What about you? What books do you like to read?”