“Then why are you here with more flowers?”
“Hope.” He pushes himself to his feet and turns fully to face me. “Hope there’s still a chance to make a broken thing whole.” His eyes sharpen on me as I step out of the doorway. “You look tired.”
“Yes, well, witnessing you drag my date out of a coffee shop and pummel him in the face left me with a nightmare or two,” I tell him bitterly.
“You can’t trust him, Juniper.”
I bark out a laugh and let the door slam shut behind me. “Of course,thisis how you’re going to play this. You’re here to swoop in and rescue me, and there’s no one I can trust more than you. Sound about right?”
“Juniper…” He tries to hand me the flowers as I move past him.
“I don’t want them,” I say, skirting around him and jogging down the stairs. “And I don’t want you.”
“An apology isn’t enough,” he calls after me.
Stopping, I twist around, yanking at the strap of my canvas bag when it slips down. He’s still holding the roses, and his eyes dip to linger on my maid’s uniform. An expression passes across his face too fast to read. It looks like pain—or maybe anguish.
“So, what are you doing here then?” I demand.
“You can’t trust the man from the coffee shop, Juniper.”
My lips flatten.Jealousy. That’s what this is. He’s not here to apologize for hurting me. He found out I’d moved on, and he’s determined to claim me like the dog down the street that goescrazy if any other dog pees on the fire hydrant it claimed as his. That’s all I am to Torin, Callum, and Archer: just a thing to be claimed.
Shaking my head, I turn to leave. “I’ve moved on, Torin. You should do the same.”
“He was my best friend.”
“You’re lying,” I say, walking away.
“Wilkes Booth,” he calls out. “I don’t know what name he gave you, but Wilkes Booth is his real name, and we went to school together. Call him that to his face and watch his reaction. He’s up to something. Don’t trust him.”
I turn around, the ring of truth in his voice making anger spike in my belly. “You’re jealous.”
His gaze dips to the roses he’s still holding. The old Juniper would have loved for a guy to buy her flowers and take her to dinner and do all the sweet romantic things I spent most of my childhood wishing for. This Juniper knows better than to think roses or even an apology can fix anything. My gaze lands on Torin’s bruised knuckles, the source of most of my nightmares last night.
I went into shock when he burst into the coffee shop as Oscar was asking what I wanted to drink. Then Torin was there, dragging Oscar into the street and punching him in the face. I did the one thing I told myself I would absolutely not do.
I ran.
And in that moment, I hated myself. Hated that this is what I’ve been reduced to. That everything good in my life is gone. That I don’t know where my little sister is, and nothing will convince my parents to open the front gate and let me in, or even tell me if my sister is alive and breathing.
I tell myself that I’m happy in this new life I’ve created for myself, and some parts of it aren’t as terrible as they were before. Mostly the friends I’ve made. But the rest?
The rest of the time I amnothappy. I’m afraid and I’m tired and I’m so damn lonely. And always, at the back of my mind, I’m haunted by the certainty that one day soon, I will need an alpha to get me through my next heat.
I wish I didn’t need anyone.
But I do.
An omega will always need an alpha, and Ihatethat a part of me still wants and needs the one standing in front of me.
“I wish it were just jealousy. It’s not.” Torin lifts his head. His expression is so serious that it scares me. “My mother used him to destroy the only good thing I had in my life, and if he’s here, it’s because of her. You can’t trust him, Juniper. If you don’t want to believe that I’m sorry for the way I treated you, please,pleasebelieve that man is a threat to you. Youcannottrust him.”
My pulse leaps, and hot, terrified blood pumps through my veins. I force my heartbeat to slow and not let fear make me do something I will regret. Something stupid like trusting the man standing in front of me.
My fingers tighten around the strap of my canvas bag, and my plastic container, which holds the salad I made for my lunch, bumps my thigh. “The worst day of my life was when I met you. If I could go back in time, Ineverwould have walked into that library at the end-of-year ball.”
He flinches. It’s not a big movement, and I only notice it because he's so still. His expression doesn’t change, but I know I hurt him.
