“He treated me like a real friend. A brother. I got to know Torin and Lottie, and we became Pack Wells, whereourmission in life became to crawl out of the deepest well in the world.”
I startle.
He smiles at me. “You had to wonder where the name came from, right? Everyone always asks, but we never tell them shit.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was that.”
“We all felt trapped. I stopped wanting to spy for Callum’s dad, and I started wanting to be his friend too. It became impossible to act the paid friend and report everything Callum had said to me to a man who treated me like a bug on the bottom of his shoe.”
“How did Callum’s dad work out you were keeping stuff from him?”
“When we tried to run. He must have worked out I was making stuff up to tell him. He grabbed Lottie and used her as a hostage to keep us at the bottom of our well.” His smile is mirthless. “I think he would have killed me if Callum hadn’t made me part of his agreement to stay in the city. What we know about him—and others like him—means they can never let us leave. And if we talk, Lottie dies.”
An impossible situation for all of them.
“I thought—we all thought—that you were the newest viper Callum’s dad had tossed into our lives like a grenade,” he says quietly. “It was after another failed attempt to free Lottie. He must have decided that Veronica wasn’t doing a good enough job of spying and he needed someone we’d get closer too. Somone we would want to tell our secrets. Choose an omega, or I’ll choose for you. That’s why we were at the Haven Academy ball that night.”
“He sounds evil,” I whisper.
“Not evil. Just someone willing to go to whatever lengths it takes to avoid jail. If he were truly evil, he’d have killed us all, but I don’t think he can bring himself to kill his son. And if he hurts us, he knows nothing he tries will ever get Callum to do what he wants.”
As I finish my breakfast for dinner, he sits on the side of my bed, talking to me as I eat.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Telling me about your past. Cooking for me.”
Why are you doing all the things I once ached for?
“Please don’t act surprised that I’m doing something I should have done a year ago, Juniper.”
I pick at my eggs as I ponder this new relationship he seems to want to have with me. Can I have a future with a man who treated me so badly? And do I even want to try?
“If things hadn’t gone so badly wrong, would you have done this?” I ask.
“Cooked breakfast for you in bed?” he considers it, then nods. “Yeah. I think I would.”
“What else would you have done?”
“Maybe pick you up and carry you into the bathroom the morning after we spent the night together. We’d shower. I’d scrub your back and kiss your neck.”
That sounds like it would have been nice. The sort of life I dreamed I would have.
“Justshower together?” I ask, my gaze dropping to his washboard abs.
His eyes turn hooded. “No. We would have done other things in the bathroom.”
“Things like what?”
He swallows thickly. “You want me to tell you… Or show you?”
I look away, cheeks hot. “You can’t show me now. One person can barely fit in my bathroom. You’d knock everything off my shelves, and I’m too tired to pick it all up.”
“Maybe I could show you one day.”
“Maybe you could.”
