Gray Bishop by Kelly Meade Read Free Book Online Page B

long. To know that roses were always blooming in their house, in Mother’s honor.
    In the corner of the room opposite all of the plants, Bishop had two upholstered chairs and a small side table. Sometimes he came in here to sit and collect his thoughts among the roses. Sometimes he went over auction business. Once in a while, like tonight, he chose this place for a serious conversation.
    Knight shuffled inside a while later, dark smudges beneath his eyes that Bishop hadn’t been able to see earlier because of the sunglasses. He was pale and exhausted, and he slumped into the other chair. “So what did they do?”
    Bishop shut the conservatory door, which made Knight sit up a little straighter. He sat back down and angled to face his brother. “They ripped five half-breeds apart and left the pieces for us to find.”
    “Fuck.” Knight swallowed hard, anger and grief washing over Bishop as Knight’s emotions got away from him. Most of the time, Knight drew out and balanced the emotional state of others and kept a tight line on his own emotions. When he was stressed out or overtired, those emotions could bounce back on the people around him—if Knight was upset, the rest of the run was in danger of being upset. And Knight had lived in a state of constant agitation ever since he and Rook were held by Fiona.
    “We weren’t able to track the triplets, but it was clearly a message reminding us that they’re out there.”
    “Like we’d forget.”
    “They also left something behind.”
    Knight’s leg jumped. “What?”
    Bishop removed the chess piece from his pocket and placed it on the table between them, his gaze steady on Knight. His brother stopped breathing, his face going gray. He stayed that way, perfectly still, for so long Bishop almost reached out to shake him. Then Knight sucked in a ragged breath.
    “I haven’t shown this to our father yet,” Bishop said.
    Knight’s wide eyes flickered to him. “Why?”
    “I wanted to talk to you first.”
    “About?”
    “The blue ribbon.”
    Knight grimaced. “What’s to talk about? The triplets want to make babies with me. Maybe they’re hoping the first one’s a boy.”
    Bishop picked through Knight’s words in his head, unable to find fault with them. He did hear a slight subterfuge. “Do they have reason to hope for that? That it’s a boy?”
    “Hope is hope, Bishop. They live in their own fantasy world where they’ll have a passel of baby half-breed horrors to terrorize us with, all courtesy of my sperm. Everything about this is hypothetical.”
    “Is it?”
    Knight’s eyes narrowed at the challenge. “I told Father what happened.”
    “Tell me.”
    “You aren’t my Alpha.” He stood up, his anger etched into his face. “You can’t order me to do anything.”
    Bishop stood as well, concern overwhelming his irritation at Knight’s rudeness. “I’m asking as your brother, Knight.”
    “Fine. I was tricked by Fiona. I was attacked, fed from, tied up, stripped down, and then felt up by a pair of insane females. Rook nearly died of silver poisoning because of me, and I am sick when I think of what could have happened if Brynn and O’Bannen hadn’t found us when they did. Happy that you know all that now?” Knight hadn’t raised his voice, but each word was coated with ice. “Good, so fuck off.”
    Bishop didn’t stop Knight from storming out.
    Stripped down. Felt up.
The words tumbled around in his mind, stoking his hatred for the women who’d assaulted his brother, sick at hearing the specifics for the first time. Ashamed of himself for not asking sooner. His gut was screaming at him that Knight had censored himself somehow. He’d felt the same way when Rook and Knight first described their ordeal over the phone post-rescue, but he’d pushed it aside in favor of believing their story.
    He glared at the chess piece, hating that it existed at all.
    Footsteps shuffled into the conservatory. “I take it that didn’t go well?” Rook