Please, for the love of the saints, you have to stop spying. I can’t tell you why.
Please, Luca.
I love you, always.
I love him, but I walk away from him, back down the path away from our bridge, from the spot where we first watched the stars together. Marcus is silent when I meet him at the bench just off the path, and for once, I don’t try to fill the silence.
I let it hang between us. That cracking chasm that I once feared, could just be what saves Marcus Haley’s life.
But Marcus Haley has never left well enough alone. Because Marcus Haley still somehow believes the world can be good and just. Because Marcus Haley will do the right thing and report Andrew Radcliffe.
As soon as we’re back in the cottage, he corners me before I can escape to my nest once more.
“What’s gotten into you?” he demands.
I look up at him dully. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bullshit,” he says, but he doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. His accusation stings, but he’s not wrong.
“I just want time to myself.”
“Something’s going on,” he says, his voice low, not quite a growl. “If you don’t tell me what it is, I can’t protect you from it.
I look in his eyes and lie right to his face. “There’s nothing wrong,” I say. “I’m fine.”
* * *
But noneof us are truly fine.
Bitsy, Ellie, and I all saw Trinity Wells kill herself.
Our Omega Seminar is somber.
Leigh opens our session with a helpless shake of her head. “Nothing I teach you matters. It won’t save you from an alpha who wants to hurt you. From a world that wants to hurt you. I believed you would be safe in packs. I believed you would be safe if you behaved. And I was wrong.”
Her tears spill, tracking watery brown-black mascara down her cheeks. And then she weeps in earnest, her cries as broken and bitter as we all feel.
It’s Bitsy who takes the empty seat beside her, wrapping our Omega Seminar teacher in a tight hug. She lets Leigh sob until the older omega quiets and then says, “Everything you teach us is valuable, even if we don’t want to learn it. Will you teach us something tonight?”
Leigh looks down at Bitsy through watery eyes. “What is it you want to know, Miss Jordan?”
“Teach us how to make chocolate soufflé?”
“That’ll take all night. And I’m certain some of you aren’t up to the task.”
Bitsy quirks a brow in my direction. “Then some of us can watch and enjoy the fruits of everyone else’s labors. Please, Mrs. Parsons? I think we could all go for your chocolate soufflé right about now.”
“Yes, all right, dear. Let’s get started, then.”
* * *
The knockat the door comes halfway through our session and we all exchange frightened but curious looks. In all of our sessions, no one’s ever knocked at the door before. Like our cottages, the omega lodge has been a safe space just for us omegas.
“Juniper!” Marcus shouts, banging on the door again.
I go to head toward the door, but Leigh puts herself in front of.
She opens the door, her scribe raised, but it’s only Marcus on the other side of the door.
