Page 108 of Knot Her Beta

Where is his cane? I want to leap forward, to support him, but I lost my right to touch him when I hurt him.

“You didn’t understand what was happening, and I couldn’t stop it to take care of you the way you deserve.” My fingers dig into the denim of my jeans hard enough for my knuckles to ache with the pressure. “I wanted to, though. Please believe that. The Rut doesn’t give a damn about anything except breeding and claiming, but that’s not an excuse. It is never an excuse to hurt you.”

He doesn’t react, only stares at me, and ice forms in my veins. It’s the same as the last time he saw me, caught deep in my cycle, and he was gasping on the bed while I couldn’t stop my own body from taking what it wanted.

“I promise you,” I say, daring to crawl forward. “I swear to you, it will never happen again. I don’t need to lock you. It’s not…I can hold back for you.”

His hand leaves the doorframe to reach toward me, but it stops halfway, suspended between us, and his fingers curl slowly inward. “Em, what are you doing?”

I stare up at him in confusion. “Apologizing.”

Grady shakes his head and reaches for me with both hands. “Please. Get off the floor.”

I don’t move. I can’t. Not until he forgives me.

Grady’s jaw sets, and he crouches to be on my level, his bad knee protesting with an audible pop. His breath hisses between his teeth. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

His hands find my elbows, and the contact melts the ice flowing through my heart. “Nothing, Emily. Do you understand me?”

That can’t be true. “But then why did you ignore me over the weekend? Every call. Every text. It’s been radio silence, Grady. If nothing was wrong, why weren’t you responding?”

His confusion returns. “What day is it?”

The question is so unexpected that I answer before I’ve processed it. “Monday.”

Disbelief slackens his lips, followed by dawning horror. “Oh.” His head turns toward the windows, as if only just realizing it’s morning. “Oh, god.”

He turns back to me, his hazel eyes clear now in a way they weren’t thirty seconds ago.

“I didn’t ignore you. Well, I did,” he corrects with a guilty grimace, “but I only meant to organize my thoughts for a minute. I swear I didn’t keep ignoring you on purpose. I just…”

He peers back toward the office. “I completely lost track of time. I have no idea how, but I—” He grimaces. “Can we move from the floor now? I need help standing.”

“Yes! I’m so sorry.” I scramble to stand and lift him by his arms.

He groans in pain and leans into me. “Just give me a second.”

“Take all the time you need.” My arms come around him, tugging him close.

Ink, coffee, and the stale odor of a body that hasn’t been outside in days cling to him, and it means everything that he’s letting me hold him again.

He sighs into my shoulder. “You’re so warm.”

My hand rubs up his back. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s not a complaint. I just realized how little I’ve slept.” He pulls back slowly. “I need to show you something.”

He takes my hand and uses the wall as support to draw me through the doorway into the office.

The room tells the story before he says a single word. Paper buries the walnut desk, a landslide of handwritten pages covering every inch of the surface, stacked in uneven piles and spilling onto the floor beside the chair. More dirty mugs peek out of the mess, and his laptop sits in the center.

Grady’s hand slips from mine, and he moves to the desk, sifting through the towers of paper, searching with the focus of someone who knows what he’s looking for is buried somewhere inside.

I spot the head of his cane from where it had fallen to the floor by the desk and not been picked back up, as if Grady had forgotten its very existence.

He finds what he’s searching for and lifts out a single half-sheet of paper, the bottom torn in a jagged line. He smooths it across the walnut surface with his palm. Ink stains his fingertips, blue and black smudged together from long hours of holding pens.

“This is where it started.” He traces his own handwriting. “Thursday night. I sat down to write you an apology, but it didn’t stay a letter for very long.”