Knot The One They Want

Lorali Pov

"I would have thought you crazy if you hadn’t ended up breaking down near the toilet mid-vomit, ranting on and on about the evil of Pack Spade," Astrid says nonchalantly, slurping up the last of her noodles. I stare at her, shocked, the tales of my actions from yesterday ringing in my ears like a curse. What have I done?

"So, Spade really did all that to you, or were you dramatizing it since you were drunk?" she asks, tilting her head. My gaze snaps to her, my brows knitting together. "What did I say about Spade?"

"Everything. I know e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g." Astrid leans into the words, savoring them, and I cover my face with my hands, wishing the ground would swallow me whole. This is unbelievable. "Why would you say I was fun? I was clearly a sociopath, and you seemed like you hated every second of it," I groan, dragging my hand across the counter to snatch the pill she offered earlier. I plop it into my mouth, praying it will end my headache so I can start thinking clearly and begin damage control.

"It’s after," she says with a laugh that drips with irony. "You do one of those things that aren’t fun in the moment, but you laugh about it later." I shake my head, despair clawing at me. "Just promise me you won’t tell anyone," I groan.

She nods easily. "Anyways, I’m throwing another party tonight. Tell me if you’re interested. My number’s already in your phone. You put it in when you blacked out." I stare at her, shocked. "After the night we just had, you’d invite me to another party?"

"Yep." She nods, unfazed. "We’ll just keep your drinking to a moderate level this time."

I sigh, pressing the pulsing vein in my temple. "Please give me the keys so I can get out of here before what happened to Gabriel happens to you. I am very irritable right now."

Astrid turns, reaching up to the top of the fridge, and pulls down what looks like the house keys. "I lock the doors and hide them because I don’t want to wake up and find all my things gone," she explains.

I just nod, snatching the keys and rushing out of there, nearly tripping over bodies a couple of times before finally making it outside. Relief floods me as I head straight to the penthouse.

I slowly open the door and slip back inside.I expect to run into at least one person, if not all of them, but the silence is most desirable. The medicine hasn’t kicked in yet, and my head still pounds, so I don’t want to meet anyone. I rush to my old room—the guest room—and push the door open.

I collapse onto the bed, a gigantic sigh of relief escaping me. I’m free. My eyes grow heavier with every passing second. "I’m just going to take a little nap," I whisper to myself. Within minutes, I’m gone, swallowed by sleep.

Keion Pov

I found Walter passed out on the floor yesterday, and when I told Augi, he didn’t even look surprised. That alone told me something had happened in this penthouse. I tried asking everyone, though by "everyone" I really mean just Augi, since Oril seems just as clueless as me but Augi refused to say a word.

Now I sit here, sighing as I press a cool, damp cloth gently against Walter’s fevered forehead. Every few seconds, I lift it, fold it to the colder side, and place it back over his brow, watching the tense line between his eyebrows refuse to smooth out.

Me and Oril have been taking shifts all night, caring for him. The only one who hasn’t done a damn thing is Augi, the man who knows what happened but won’t say a thing. He’s still cooped up in that room with Torin, probably letting Torin dump his usual asshole behavior all over him. I swear, if I wasn’t trying to keep the peace, I’d march in there, drag Augi out by the ear, and force him to tell me what happened. But we’re all trying to rebuild Spade, and starting a fight now would only tear us further apart.

As I rinse the cloth in the bowl, my mind drifts to Lorali. Where the hell is she? Still at the hospital? It’s not often I think about that girl, but on the rare days I do, something bad always follows.

A quiet, broken breath shatters the heavy silence of the room. I look down and see Walter’s eyelids flutter, wet lashes separating slowly. Tears spill over his temples into his hairline before his eyes even fully open.

"Hey," I say softly, leaning closer and setting the cloth aside. "Easy. You’ve been out cold for hours. What happened to you?"

Walter doesn’t look at me. He stares blankly at the ceiling, his breathing shallow and ragged. He curls his knees up slightly, folding into himself as if trying to shrink out of existence.

"I’m a terrible person, Keion," he sobs, his voice cracking so hard it barely sounds like him. He buries his face in his trembling hands, sniffling again and again. "I’m a monster... I hurt my mate..."

A knot tightens in my gut. My mind scrambles to make sense of his words. "Wait, what? Cinnabon, look at me. What are you talking about? Did you... did you get into a fight with Augi or Oril? Who did you hurt?"

He shakes his head violently, his chest heaving as choked wails tear from his throat. "No! Not them! No!"

"Then who?" I press, the suspense twisting my stomach in my gut. "Walts, talk to me! Who is your mate?"

He pulls his hands away from his face, his blue eyes raw and glistening with terror and guilt so severe it chills me to the bone.

"Lorali," he whispers.

The name hits the quiet room like a physical blow. Before my brain can even process it, Walter grabs my wrist, his grip frantic, tears streaming uncontrollably down his pale cheeks.

"She’s... she’s not just my mate, Keion," he chokes out, gasping for air. "She’s ours. She’s all of our fated mate—except Augi and Oril. And Torin... Torin knew. He knew the entire time. He hid it from us. He hid her so he could play the savior. He wanted to be her only hero."

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