Though I won’t need one if everything goes the best possible way. A new Alpha willing to bond me and share the emotional link to Marcus might just be the thing my body needs to curb the sickness. At least, that’s the leading line of thinking with my doctor. Pretty much everything else hasn’t worked.
Dad and Father quietly descend the stairs, their hands laced and their worried eyes fixed on me. Even Father—always so quick to humor and never taking anything too seriously—is concerned.
The paper slices my finger as I rip it open, and small bits of blood dot the envelope as I extract the info hidden inside.
It feels like an omen, though I have no idea how to interpret it.
The paper is thick with a blank cover sheet to help maintain confidentiality. I let it fall to the floor before pressing the list of my potential cities into my legs to try and flatten it out. God, my heart’s in my throat.
Please be New York, I chant to myself, to whatever entity might be listening.Please let it be Marcus.
For a minute, my hands are shaking hard enough it’s impossible to read the information. I press them harder into my legs and suck in a breath, trying to find some semblance of calm.
And then my heart drops all the way to the damn floor.
“They…” I force a swallow and read the paragraph again. That little flutter of hope withers in my chest, leaving me aching for an entirely different reason. “They aren’t matching me because I didn’t technically attend the gala.”
“What?” Violet’s outraged question cuts through the silence of the room as she snatches the paper from me. “What the hell do they mean you didn’t attend? You got a fucking broken nose from an asshole Alpha, of course you were there.”
She snatches the paper from my clumsy grip, reading it twice before pacing angrily across the room. Her entire being radiates menace, enough that Rylan pushes off the wall and grabs her waist, forcing her still. She practically vibrates in his hold, a wordless snarl ripping from her throat.
Dad palms my cheek, gently pulling my attention away from my sister. He crouches beside the couch, keeping our gazes level. His eyes are worried, but there’s that bit of heat behind them, too, that anger that’s not gone away since last month.
“Since I never made it into the ballroom, they’re requiring me to go again,” I tell him.
“There’s the gala in October,” Papa offers from the end of the sofa. “Just a couple more months. You’ve been stable, so it should be all right to wait that long.”
Tears well and spill down my cheeks, and Dad’s mouth tightens, a muscle feathering in his jaw. His scent surrounds us in the next moment, soured by his rage. I’m too sick to worry about him being so angry right now. Nausea burns up my throat, but I’m unsure if it’s from the medicine this time or what’s left of my heart shattering.
“He was there,” I admit to the room in a whisper.
Everything stops, even Dad’s breathing. His scent curls around us both, and it just edges my hysteria higher. My own scent breaks through the lotion I’d put on this morning. Theapple isn’t sweet, though. It’s bitter from my distress, from my heartbreak.
“What?” Papa asks, his voice suddenly the careful neutral I’ve only heard an Alpha use when an Omega is particularly fractious.
“Who was there?” Dad asks, his voice also so controlled it sends a ripple of worry through me. I must look especially awful right now.
“Marcus. The Alpha.” I swallow and close my eyes, trying to remember how to breathe. The sorrow spreads through my chest like a damn flash flood, trampling everything else, so strong I’m sure it’s overriding the suppressor.
Will he know what it means? Is he somewhere it’ll be awful to suddenly feel my grief and rage and sadness?
His wide blue eyes and shocked laughter fill my mind, and it hurts too much.
I focus on Dad again.
“He was there,” I explain. “In the bathroom. We… he wanted me to meet his pack. We were waiting in the security line when the Alpha punched me.” A desperate half-laugh rips up my throat even as the room blurs a bit—vertigo from the new meds, no doubt. “He had a red pin with the name Harper on it. It stood out like a damn beacon against his tux. And he wanted me to meet the other people he’s agreed to build a life with. The nutmeg… it was the exact same. It was him, in the bathroom at the same gala as me. After not knowing where he might be, I randomly found him. And they won’t match me with him because we never actually made it into the room.”
Dad’s eyes search mine even as he wipes away the tears he can reach.
“We’ll fix it,” he promises, but I know it can’t be true. Papa and Father close in, too, murmuring their own belief that everything will be okay when every single person in this roomknows just how fucked up the Council can be, how nothing about Alphas and matching and building packs is anything short of traumatic.
My head goes fuzzy, and the nausea gets worse.
It’s Violet’s voice that cuts through everything.
“They’re smart enough to pair me with Jas, with you, but their heads are so far up their asses they can’t be bothered to facilitate helping Cole?” Her voice pitches higher, bordering on hysterical. “What the actual fuck? We need to call Dom. Victor has an in with the Council, right? There’s no fucking way the Council?—”
“Take a breath, pretty Omega,” Rylan murmurs. The words are laced with that soothing ability all Alphas have, strong enough a shiver runs down my own spine. “Before we ask the Gallos to do anything, we need you to be calm.”
