The song comes to an end and, with it, our conversation. He escorts me back to my father, his head held high. When we reach my father, Cassian greets him cordially.
“Mr. Rose, a pleasure. Miss Rose, thank you for consenting to a dance. Good evening.”
My father watches him go, before returning his attention to Professors Hayes and Teague.
“Your daughter is quite the academic, Mr. Rose. She’d be a talented scholar,” Professor Hayes says, and I cut a quick look and smile of thanks his way.
My father just chuckles. “That’s up to her future alphas to decide. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I haven’t seen my daughter since the Yule break and I’d very much like to catch up with her.”
I offer my professors a wan smile and let my father draw me away from them.
“At least you’re not remiss in your studies,” my father mutters. “But that Leclerc boy, I don’t want you consorting with him.”
“He’s my peer advisor, Father, nothing more. All freshmen have them.”
My father watches Cassian as he crosses the dance floor back to his mother.
I take the chance to reach out with my affinity, trying to glean even the smallest scrap from my father, but it’s as if he’s a void. I get nothing from him. Not even the undercurrent of emotion an omega’s empathy typically allows us to pick up on from an alpha’s posture, his scent, his demeanor.
I wince and rub my temples.
“Are you unwell?”
“Only a headache. I studied too late last night knowing I wouldn’t have much time to study today. I’m determined to do you proud.”
“You’ll make me proud by dancing with the Radcliffe boy. Here he comes now. Best behavior, daughter.”
The ‘or else’, as always, goes unspoken.
I accept Rad’s hand and let him escort me back to the dance floor, trying to repress the shudder attempting to rack through me, my instincts responding to the clear threat he represents. Stay strong, if only for this night. I have to. Even as anise and citrus choke me, his foul scent sharp, rising above the chaos of scents in the ballroom. It takes everything in me to pretend he doesn’t sicken me.
But as I let him set his hand on my waist, his thoughts blare into my mind.
He stares at the collar, and I see it through his eyes, how delicate my throat looks, how he could crush my windpipe with no effort at all.
How he wants to make me as black and blue asthat professor you spread your legs for did to me, omega whore.
I force myself not to react though my heart cries out for Ian, wishing I could warn him.
“You are a vision tonight, beloved,” he says in an undertone, but as he gazes at me, I know what he envisions: me, in this dress, beaten and bloodied. He dreams of grabbing my hair and forcing me to my hands and knees, of using his command to make me present my sex to him, just as he tried to do when he assaulted me in the small stand of trees beside the library.
“I have a courting present for you,” he says, a whisper in my ear. His lips brush my skin and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to suppress my shudder. “You miss your friend Trinity, don’t you?”
That’s when the ballroom fills with smoke and all unholy hell breaks loose.
* * *
“Where are my manners?”Rad murmurs as the smoke clears. “I haven’t introduced you to Grace. I think you’d like her. Or you would have.”
The last traces of smoke vanish, and I gasp.
Dozens of Soldiers have infiltrated the ballroom and hold students, alumni, and teachers at scribe-point.
“You will pay for this,” Headmaster Langford grits out. A masked figure presses his scribe against the headmaster’s pulse point, but no one pays them any attention.
Because standing at the very center of the ballroom is Grace Cassidy, gagged, bound, and shrieking. I recognize the older omega only from photographs in news articles and in her old Fairhaven yearbook photo, and while I’ve known Trinity for nearly a year and I’ve seen what they’ve done to her, I barely recognize her.
Her dark hair is matted, her face a mess of blood and bruises. She’s lost so much weight, her cheeks are ax-edge sharp, her shoulders bony beneath a tattered old Fairhaven sweatshirt.
