Tipping The Scales: Knox (Mate Craze Book 1)

by Lila Felix

  “Kallie, I love that you would do that for me. You are an honorable female, a brave and giving woman if ever there was one. Your strength of character is one of the things I love about you. But I can’t take your life in exchange for mine. I won’t have you chained to me for any reason except love. I do not accept you as my mate. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known, inside and out, but I won’t ruin your life. You need to leave as soon as possible before I change my mind.”

  I don’t know what I expected after saying the last thing that my dragon wanted me to say. What I wanted at that moment was for her to grab my keys, take my truck, and leave town as soon as possible.

  She needed to have her life.

  By letting her go, I was saving her life.

  She was so young and vibrant. I wouldn’t take that from her and being mated to someone who you didn’t want was like being in a cage.

  She pulled her hands from mine. “What in the actual fuck, Knox?”

  That I didn’t expect.

  “Don’t, Kallie. There is no argument you can make that would change my mind.”

  “What if I told you that I loved you?”

  I had gotten back up and walked toward the back window, still in view of her, but so far away. If she told me she loved me, then at least I would go insane with a smile on my face.

  “What if you did, Kallie? Would it change your reasons for wanting to stay with me? If you loved me, the first thing you would’ve said on that porch was that you loved me and wanted to be my mate. That wasn’t the case, was it?”

  She wrung her hands and wiped them with a little too much force on the thighs of her jeans. “I don’t know, Knox. It’s too fast. Isn’t it fast for you?”

  I blew out a breath and turned around to face her. I had to see her face.

  “Yes, Kallie. It was fast, but no less true. I have loved you from the moment I saw you at the diner. I knew you were my mate before then, but the genetics of who we are wouldn’t allow me anything else until you were of the mating age. I love you now, and I will love you for the rest of my life. I don’t care if it’s fast or what it looks like from the outside or to humans. We dragons fall heart first, and hard. But that doesn’t change my decision.”

  Her fists were balled at her sides and the redness that had once marked sadness was now preempting a side of Kallie I hadn’t seen yet.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to, either.

  She stood up and squared her shoulders.

  “You listen up, Knox… fuck, I don’t even remember your last name right now, but I’m sure it’s something dragon-y. I should probably know that since I’m here wanting it to be my last name too. I came here to do some research and have a nice spring break, and the next thing I know I’m looking at my person-boyfriend-guy I’m dating-whatever turn into a dragon right in front of my eyes. Then he tells me that I’m his mate. I’m supposed to be his wife and have his dragon babies or some shit. And so I go home and cry and beat myself up about the way I feel about you and how I shouldn’t have run last night. I should’ve stayed with you, let you wrap your arms around me, that’s not normal. None of this is normal. And now I’m standing here, telling you that I want all of the things that you do and you’re telling me to go? I wish I had never come here. I wish I had never met you.”

  That’s what I wanted, what I needed from her at that moment. She needed to be angry with me. She needed to be furious enough to leave this place and never look back. Fuck if I didn’t want her with every fiber of my being, but not like this.

  “Good. Forgot you ever met me. Go on with your investigation and whatever fun you were having here with Rhi before I ruined it. I will stay out of your way. I can even fly somewhere else if that makes you feel better. Keep the damned truck, too. It smells like you now. I don’t want it anymore. The only thing I ask is that you keep our secret. I don’t want to endanger my clan because of a stupid move on my part. I should’ve know better.”

  She was crying again, but still raging.

  “It’s not like anyone would believe me. I won’t tell a soul, not even Rhi.”

  “Fine. But just know that this was real for me, Kallie. I wanted you for life and not just to save myself. I wanted everything with you.” My chest was breaking open over and over knowing that I was driving away the other half of my soul. If it had to end, it shouldn’t be like this. I didn’t want the last thing I saw of my female to be her hating me from across the room.

  “Yeah? Well remember that I wanted to help you have it, and you turned me away like a coward bastard.”

  “Whatever lets you sleep at night, sweetheart.”

  14

  Kallie

  Keep the damn truck, too. It smells like you now.

  “Fuck you, Knox!” I screamed in retort as I barreled out of his driveway in said Damn Truck. “Fuck you!” I knew it was childish and that he couldn’t even begin to hear me, but it felt good to say. How had things fallen so far off track? How?

  The road was a blurry mess in front of me and all logic told me to pull over until my stupid tears dried up. Had I been in the city I would’ve done just that for fear of ramming into someone after missing a stop sign. Here, they had a total of four and those were all in town in the opposite direction. I was fine.

  Reaching in my pocket, I dialed Rhi. There was no way I was going to discuss the evening with her, but she would worry if I just didn’t show up. Or not worry if she found her own entertainment, but given the entire town spit fire, my guess was she was alone. She picked up on the first ring, the sound of music blaring in the background. Her music. She had to be in the car.

  “Where are ya?” The background music lowered. Car it was. Please let her not be drinking. She usually had some sense when it came to that, but we were usually within walking distance, too.

  “Hello to you, too, Rhi.” I forced myself to smile as I spoke hoping it would somehow miraculously hide the complete and utter meltdown that was brewing inside me. “I’m in the truck.”

  I wasn’t about to admit I was wandering aimlessly, completely lost on what to do next with my life. A life I had completely planned out and ready. A plan that now seemed pointless because he was gone. Someone who I knew for a nanosecond in the scheme of things. No, that little tidbit was all for me. Some things are too embarrassing, even to admit to a best friend, especially when your best friend had been acting not so normal as of late.

  “You sound awful.”

  Okay so maybe she was a little bit back to the old Rhi that I knew and loved.

  “Yeah, well Knox and I had a fight.” Explosive end. Whatever. I still hadn’t fully processed what the heck had happened. He wanted me and then once he got me… boom, see ya. I knew this was a classic boy getting in a girls pants tactic, but he didn’t even want in my pants, where I probably would have let him go because apparently he turns me into someone other than myself.

  “He wanted some and you put on your good girl breaks. Am I right?” She started humming her bow chicka wow wow annoying song. Normally it would have had me chuckling as I saw her accompanying dance in my head, but even that couldn’t break through the torture I was feeling.

  And it was torture. Rejection stung, true. But this, this was more. I physically hurt being away from him. Knowing he was miserable and that I was the cause of hurt on a level that defied logic. Why didn’t he let me stay? His words just didn’t add up. I heard them, understood them and applied them to the situation like any good lawyer would, but I still came up missing something. If he truly loved me as he said, letting me go was the antithesis of what he should be doing.

  That was the crux of it though, wasn’t it? He didn’t love me. Not truly. Not that anyone could love in that short period of time. So why did his non-love hit me so freaking hard?

  “More like I wanted more.” I admitted like a fool. I didn’t want to talk about any details even the non-dragony mate-ish ones. Or did I? I had called her. I was a stupid hot mess. Arrrg. Knox, why did you have to
be so smexy and funny and talented and such a good kisser and ride a motorcycle and more importantly why did you have to reject me?

  “Gay.”

  Leave it to Rhi.

  “I don’t think that is the problem.” Nope, I felt exactly how much that wasn’t the problem when he was pressed against me, owning my mouth, stealing my ability to do anything more than feel.

  “I’m still calling gay.” It was her go to reason for all things male. Dude didn’t want to dance with her, it had to be he liked guys and not that she was an annoying drunk. Guy breaks up with her, had to be he had the same taste in gender. Goodness forbid it be her fault. No one buys her a drink—you guessed it—all gay. One day she was going to take a good long look in the mirror. No doubt today wasn’t going to be that day. Or was it tomorrow, already?

  “I was sure you were his,” she mumbled. That was the second time she said something like that. Something was off. Could it be she was a dragon? No, that was just my ridiculously overactive imagination. I would’ve known if my roomie could fly around and spit fire.

  “What?”

  “I said, he’s GAY,” she lied. I mean she did say that, but I could hear in her voice that she was covering up what she knew I heard. One crisis at a time, I reminded myself. I could deal with Rhi’s fiery secret in the morning. For now I needed to pull myself together, get some answers, and figure out a plan. My plan would have to include Knox fitting in my life, even if he wasn’t currently game.

  “I gotta go. I just didn’t want you to worry.” I took a deep breath as I waited for her response. A good fifteen seconds later I added, “And he’s not gay, just a jerk.”

  “Where are you?” Her response didn’t match my words nor did her intonation. “I’ll meet up.” Yeah that wasn’t going to happen. My gut told me no good could come of it. Maybe she was a evil dragon. Were there such things? Or worse, maybe she wanted Knox. Not that that should be worse than her being an evil dragon, but at the moment I could think of nothing worse.

  “Just driving.” I flipped the turn signal, hoping the added sound effect would give credence to my lie. “Go. Have fun. I’ll see you when I clear my head a bit.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure. Night.” I hung up before she could add anything to the conversation. It needed to be over because I just couldn’t. Not tonight, not after all that had already happened.

  I was a sadist. That was the only explanation for the four bazillion times I replayed the fight with Knox as I drove in what amounted to a ginormous circle around the town again and again. If I had had my wits about me, I would’ve altered my route by now to avoid the chances of town security thinking I was planning some kind of attack. That was not what I needed.

  Parts of it just didn’t make sense. If I was his one and only, that should be the way it was. Not I’m your one and only but buh bye. Not when I could be the thing between him and whatever would happen to him if I said no. Why didn’t I have the courage and chutzpa to call his bluff on leaving?

  You need to leave as soon as possible before I change my mind.

  Those words echoed in my mind. If I had stayed, would things be sunshine and roses now? Of course not, but maybe this hole in my heart would be smaller. I didn’t want to be that girl. The one who won the guy by being available. For him, maybe for him it was worth it. Scratch that, all things were worth it. I felt it to my marrow. Why didn’t I tell him that? Because I sprouted feathers like a loser.

  The tears began to flow freely again as I thought about all the things I should’ve said, but didn’t. How I loved him, too, even if all logic told me it was impossible. How I wanted to be with him, for him, and not just because he needed me. How him needing me did fill me with purpose, but only because it was him and not all the things I now realized he worried about. How I would find a way to make my current path blend with him, not as a sacrifice, but as a way to actually have a life worth living at the end of my five and ten year goals. How the idea of little dragon babies didn’t freak me out, even though I was far too young to have them now. How he, how… darn it, my eyes were not able to see more than a few feet in front of me and a dead me would never get him back.

  I pulled over using a runaway truck lane that was perfectly placed for my meltdown. There was no way I wanted to be here in winter if they needed those bad boys. Looking at the clock, I knew my mom would be just about home from work. Her hours were one of the reasons I spent so much time focusing on my future. I wanted to not be forty something and schlepping drinks for drunks, all with the hopes of filling in the holes left by a dead end day job’s salary.

  One thing still didn’t come close to making sense, and that was how Gran knew about me. Or did she? She was so off the wall by then that the entire breakdown might have been a coincidence. But… what if it wasn’t? What if she had been of right mind when she flipped out on me? The only person who knew Gran with any depths was my mom, and I had a feeling I was about to pull the scab off the wound by asking her what I needed to ask her. If my brain could conjure any other way of finding out, I’d have been going that route, but alas none did. All I could think of was Mom.

  Hi Mom Home yet?

  She hated it when I sent texts. She never texted, only called, and true to form, the phone rang moments later.

  “Why are you up?” She sounded tired. My mom was always tired. She had never been what anyone would call a perfect mom or even a good mom, but she tried her hardest so that worked for me. In many ways her inability to parent made me stronger and more self-motivated than any of those “perfect” moms I envied my classmates having growing up. Heck, on paper Rhi’s parents looked great and they were certified assholes.

  “Spring break.” I reminded her. She knew I was working on my thesis during spring break. I may have left out a few details, but I hadn’t lied.

  “You drinking?” Because of course that would be the only logical thing her college daughter could be doing this late at night.

  Not that I wanted to tell her the truth. Na, ma, I was just breaking up with a dragon and figured I would call and shoot the shit while I let my eyes get unfuzzy from the bucket of tears I’ve been shedding. Because that would go over well and was as far from delusional sounding as you could get.

  “No, mom.” I gave my best exacerbated sigh hoping to guise my now weak voice. “I just was wondering something. Was Gran crazy at the end?”

  “What brought this on?”

  Shit. Her voice told me all I needed to know. She knew I knew something.

  “I’m sort of in the town we brought her ashes to and it got me thinking.” Lies. All lies and my mom was great at sniffing those out. I crossed my fingers and toes my excuse sounded plausible. Not that it mattered. I needed to know.

  “Why are you there?”

  “Thesis mom. I told you that.” I hadn’t actually told her that, but after a shift at her day job, and a shift with the drunks, I figured she was tired enough that she would at least second guess. It wasn’t like I planned to never tell her. I just wanted to do this alone. Or alone-ish, as the case turned out to be.

  “Sorry, I forgot.” And now she was the one with her pants on fire. Weren’t we the pair? “No, she wasn’t crazy. She just had a hard life.”

  “She called me one of them.” I let slip out. In my head I had all the good questions to lead into this, but hearing the defeated acceptance of my grandmother’s awfulness to my mom had them flowing from my lips.

  “I remember.” The sound of water beating off the wall now filled my ear. She had turned on the shower, her belief that the conversation was about to end evident.

  “What did she mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mom. For serious. What. Did. She. Mean.” No more beating around the bush. No more trying to weasel it out of her. Those attempts had already gone south. I needed to know, and now I had every reason to believe she knew.

  “She believed in true love and fate and all that crap.” She paused a
nd I almost interrupted until I heard the rumple of her clothing. She was getting ready to actually get in the shower. Whatever I got from her in the next few moments would be it. She wasn’t one for discussing feelings. It would be a drop by and done. “You know that.”

  “Uh hu,” I agreed, not wanting her to stop her flow. I could sense she was about to drop a bomb and I braced myself. “She and my dad were meant to be, and when he died, so did much of her.”

  Okay, maybe not a bomb as much as what I already knew.

  “That explains nothing.” Defeat soaked into me. Maybe it didn’t matter anyway. I picked at the polish on my nail, glad the dimly lit area didn’t allow me to see the destruction I was making to the fancy flowers Rhi had managed to paint on them.

  “She thought you were going to be like him. Instead she said fate had you set to be half of a pair.”

  Crap on a cracker. She knew about Knox. Gran freaking knew? How? And possibly more important, why did she think it so horrible?

  “So, she didn’t want me married?” I fished for answers, hoping my faux confusion actually sounded sincere.

  “You know what? I don’t want to talk about her. She might not have been crazy, but it didn’t mean she was nice.”

  That was a truth bomb if I ever heard it. My Gran could be out and out cruel, and more than once I was sure she enjoyed it.

  “So you’re not going to answer,” I clarified, more to myself than to her. It wasn’t a question. She was done.

  “Fine.” And with that one word a bit of hope for answers grew inside me. “I think she thought you were going to end up like me.”