Page 40 of Knot Your Basic B*tch

Here was the moment of truth. Was Nyles going to fake an interest in a one-eyed, peg legged swashbuckling wolf? Sorry, but if he even tried it, it was going to be obvious as hell.

“Well, reading isn’t my thing. But I do pick up Self Improvement books. It is fascinating to learn from the greats about different tips on improving oneself.”

“Oh.” I said politely.

Nyle was making zero attempt to mirror me.

It was almost like all of his strong endeavors to hide his dark past were working so effectively, because he wasn’t actually hiding anything. Nyle was just a nice guy (not one of those nice guys who just pretend to be nice, to sleaze their way into someone’s pants, and if he doesn’t get there reveals himself as a raging incel. I mean, actually kind). A nice guy who was built enough to wrestle a bear, with a perfectly symmetrical face.

Huh.

I somehow found an alpha that I could genuinely recommend to Titus for his pack.

Oh right, I should probably show some interest in the thing that he just said—though the thought of reading a Self Improvement book sounded about as fun as stepping on a lego in the middle of the night. “What was the best bit of advice from the books?”

“Probably that,” Nyle tapped his index finger against his chin, “I get to choose which of my thoughts I pay attention to. That a negative thought I have about myself is only powerful if I pay attention to it.”

Okay, so this guy literally spoke ‘therapy’ as if it was asecond language to him. That was about as opposite to a sociopathic cannibal serial killer as an alpha could get.

“Well, that’s all the time I have for this interview. I’ll text Titus the results in one to two business days.” I drummed my fingers against the table.

Nyle nodded, holding his hand out to me. He shook my hand with a nice firm grip, without doing that asshole thing that some guys do, where they crush your hand a little bit to show how tough they are.

No. Nyle didn’t even crush my hand a little. Just gripped my hand firmly, shaking it with confidence before he continued on his way.

Ugh. Fine. Not only was there nothing wrong with him, Nyle seemed obnoxiously perfect. He and my brother could walk off into the sunset together and have an emotionally mature, boundary respecting and healthy relationship together.

My phone buzzed, so I flipped it back over.

Kain: You have a date with Brutus. Saturday at 3 pm at our packhouse.

CHAPTER 25

CHLOE

I’m not gonna lie.This Brutus situation had me more than a little concerned.

Here I was, monitoring red flags for my brother, and then walking willy nilly into what could potentially be a date with a giant red flag hidden amongst my own scent matches.

Why hadn’t the twins mentioned anything about Brutus before? Why was he this big giant secret? Was this a normal thing? If someone in the pack ended up being a little bit weird, was it a common practice for other members of the pack to sort of lock him away in dark rooms and in chains, and pretend like everything was fine?

Neither of the twins acted like it was weird at all that Brutus hadn’t reached out to me himself, and that he was using Kain as a middle man. They both acted like it was also fine that Brutus expected me to come to their pack home on my own. It wasn’t like it was far from the Institute, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have the app for ridesharing… it was just the principle of the thing.

I mean, I was all about feminism. I have rights. I have the right for the alpha I’m dating to pick me up himself and nothave to figure out transportation on my own. It’s really simple, basic stuff.

Was he hideous? Was that why Sabien and Kain hadn’t ever shown me a picture of him? How would a hideous alpha end up in a pack with the twins? Sabien and Kain were beautiful men. They were stupidly pretty, golden perfection. How could they possibly end up with someone that looked like the human equivalent of a blobfish?

Whatever, I wasn’t shallow. I cared about more than what an alpha looked like. There were other things that mattered. Maybe Sabien and Kain got with Brutus because he was rich.

What was I going to do if Brutus was awful?

What if he had the personality of a stale graham cracker? What if he was rude to waiters and watched podcasts of bald incels who wanted to show off their weird orange Bugattis and how much they hated women?

Would my budding love for Kain and Sabien be enough to survive Brutus?

I had to stop spiraling. Maybe I should take Nyle’s advice and think positively, or whatever he’d said. Besides, I hadn’t even met the alpha. There was no point in panicking. Yet.

I stood in front of my scent matches’ pack house as if I didn’t know how to operate a simple doorbell. Come on, it isn’t even like I’d never been here before. I could do this.