Laurent finally found his voice with Beast by his side. “How do you not mean to stab someone with a broken bottle?”
William’s blue eyes threw daggers at Elliot. “If you were faster, we could have escaped by now. Together. With me in his body. Now you will have to face the consequences.”
Elliot’s eyes welled up at the sight of Beast’s massive fists curling. “I can explain,” he whimpered.
“I—Elliot, what the hell were you thinking?” hissed Knight, who finally moved from his spot by the door.
“It doesn’t matter what he was thinking. He attacked my boy,” Beast growled, letting go of Laurent and approaching aggressively, like a stone giant ready to squash Elliot into a pulp.
Elliot wanted to apologize, promise it would never happen again, but Beast grabbed his throat and pushed his thick fingers into the vulnerable flesh of Elliot’s neck.
“I will destroy you, you skinny, backstabbing motherfucker!” Beast roared and slammed Elliot against the wall as soon as Gray let go.
Elliot’s head rattled, and the pain spreading at the back of his head was so intense he feared his skull might have cracked from that single blow. Tears clouded his eyes at the sheer helplessness of his situation. Somewhere in the background, William’s voice echoed with more abuse, but huge fists were a more urgent kind of threat. Elliot tried to grab Beast’s wrist, tried to pry his hand away from his throat, but it was like attempting to push the Titanic away from the shore. And then, out of the blur came two other arms that grabbed Beast and tugged at him hard enough for Elliot to gravitate to the floor. It was as if he couldn’t control his legs anymore. They just folded under him like wet sheets of paper.
“Beast, don’t,” tried Knight, but even his impressive size was no match to Beast’s raw strength, and he too was pushed against the wall.
At least the angry bull of a man let go of Elliot, making him free to crawl under one of the sinks holding on to his aching throat. Colors danced in front of his eyes, but he was still alive.
“No!” Beast yelled. “I’ve warned you that you need to watch him! He doesn’t get to go anywhere near my property with a sharp object and live to tell the tale. Enough!” He grabbed Elliot’s ankle and pulled him out from under the sink in one clean sweep that made Elliot yelp in panic. There was nothing he could do against Beast’s force, but just as he curled into a ball and hid his head with his arms, Knight collided with Beast at full speed and knocked him at the sinks. They fell on one, and the white porcelain gave up, shattering to the floor.
“Oh yeah? You want to take responsibility for him?” Beast grabbed Knight and spun him around to throw him head-first at the wall, but Knight managed to protect himself in time against the impact.
William approached Laurent and uselessly pressed at his back. Each time, William’s hands disappeared in Laurent’s body, Laurent stepped aside with a distressed look on his face. “Go on, you serpent. Just touch something sharp. One drop of your blood is all I need.”
Knight spun around and got his arm around Beast’s head, clutching it to his side, but that seemed to have only enraged the grizzly, and Beast shot punch after punch into Knight’s gut and ribs, causing him to curl up by the wall and groan. Still, he didn’t let go.
“Elliot. Hide. Fuck—”
Laurent backed off into a corner with his eyes wide, and Elliot wanted to do the same, frightened of the force of nature unleashed by Beast. Not even Martin was as big and ferocious. How could Elliot possibly help Knight without causing even more havoc?
Stuck crawling away toward the stalls, he watched the fight he could only blame himself for. At least Gray decided to step in. With a watchful eye on Elliot, he pulled on Beast’s arm.
“Isn’t that enough?”
Beast pushed him away so abruptly it seemed like Gray weighed nothing, but that created an opening for Knight to fight back, and he headbutted Beast so hard it seemed to confuse him. He let go of Knight, who pushed him toward the door, away from Elliot.
“I won’t let you touch him!”
The words hit Elliot right in the solar plexus, and he rubbed his eyes so no one would see him tearing up. Once again Knight was a wall between Elliot and the violence the world wanted to unleash on him for his stupid decisions. He couldn’t allow for Knight to get hurt any more than he already had.
Fuck loyalty to William Fane. Knight was here, ready to protect him at his own expense when William had put Elliot in this position in the first place for the most selfish reasons.