* * *
Ian is waitingoutside the study room when I finish Peer Advising, and grabs me the moment I leave the room, his hand banded around my upper arm, restraining his alpha power just enough not to hurt me.
Marcus growls out a warning, but Ian ignores him as he guides me down the stairs to his basement office.
He goes to yank the door shut, but my honor guard gets his foot in the door before Ian can shut it, uttering a low warning. “Put a locked door in between me and my charge and see what happens.”
“I need to speak with her in private, Haley.”
“It’s all right, Marcus. Professor Reinhardt will refrain from anyunseemlybehavior,” I say, my voice hard and cold. “Please, close the door and make sure we’re not disturbed. I can assure you, we won’t be long.”
“You have five minutes,” Marcus warns me, “before I break down this door.” He closes the door behind him, and I turn on Ian.
“I thought you were trying to refrain from untoward behavior? Ambushing me and dragging me to your office so we can talk doesn’t feel untoward to you?” I arch a brow.
“Sit down, Juniper,” he growls, a warning in his voice.
I sit but glare up at him. “What is it, Professor?”
“Andrew Radcliffe is fuckingstalkingyou and you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I say lightly. “My private life doesn’t concern you. After all, you’renotmy alpha. You’ve made it quite clear that you don’t want that kind of relationship with me.”
“You think I don’t fucking want you? Don’t want to protect you, to hold you so tight you’ll never feel unsafe again? To make you laugh until the pinch between your brows vanishes and then catch every laugh with a kiss? I want you in every fucking way imaginable. I want to bite you, to mate you, to be yourpack. But I can’t have you. Not while you’re my student.”
My heart stutters in my chest, but I can’t back down. I won’t let him see how badly I want everything he just said we can’t have together. “And that, sir, makes you not my alpha. As I said. I’ll have my assistantship application on your desk next Monday. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
He looms over me, but I stand, going toe to toe with him. Of all the alphas, I willnotlet this one intimidate me. Not when I know he’s so filled with fear.
Not when I know just how much he actually loves me.
I’ve only just left his office when my phone chimes with a text message from Rad.
>
CHAPTER37
Iwas all bravado with Ian, but all of that fleeting courage floods from me the moment I return to my cottage to find its door hanging off the hinges, clearly blasted open by some kind of hex. What’s left of the wards glimmer faintly in the corners of the doorway.
Marcus lets out a growl and steps in front of me, blocking me from the cottage.
“Saints above,” he mutters, punching a number into his phone. “Connor? I need you to sweep Juniper’s cottage while I stay with her. I can’t let her remain outside alone. The cottage may be unsafe for her to enter. Someone broke through the wards.”
Not someone. Andrew Radcliffe.
Connor arrives quickly and lets out a low whistle when he sees the purple-black mark of the hex on my door. “Shit, man. You weren’t kidding. Hang tight, Junie. I’ll see what’s up.”
Once Connor has gingerly stepped over the threshold, I finally let out my whimper of fear. It was one thing for Rad to get inside the wards of the omega residences, another for him to take pictures of me through the windows, but it’s something entirely else for him to have been in my cottage.
And it couldn’t have been anyone else.
“Rad,” I mumble. “He did this.”
Marcus lets out a wound groan. “Because I got him investigated. Fuck, Juniper. You were right. You were fucking right, and I brought this down on you. But he can’t get away with this any longer.”
I go into his arms, nuzzling into the cream wool of his sweater. It’s been so long since I’ve been in his arms, and he tenses before relaxing into my embrace. I shake my head. “This has been a long time coming.”
Connor finally gives us the all-clear with a sympathetic grimace. “It’s safe. No magic, nothing harmful. But it’s destroyed. Be careful. There’s glass everywhere.”
