* * *
I arriveto Peer Advising early that day and I don’t know if it’s to build a head of steam to continue my battle of wits with Cassian or to avoid drawing his ire further.
But Cassian isn’t the alpha who struts into the study room. Cassian doesn’t smell like anise and oranges, a cloying scent that draws bile up my throat, burning until I cough. For the second time today, an alpha puts a locked door between me and my honor guard.
Rad looks uninterestedly at Marcus through the window in the door and then casts a silencing spell, the banging knocks and Marcus’ growled demands immediately going quiet.
“You can’t be here,” I tell the senior alpha. “I have my Peer Advising soon.”
“Oh, I know, beloved. There’s never a time when I don’t know where you are or where you’re meant to be.”
I bristle, sitting up taller in my seat. “What do you want, Rad?”
“To talk to you, dearest.” He sneers the last word, his gaze traveling from where my neck meets my shoulder down to the two open buttons on my blouse, the pale skin beneath. He unhurriedly takes the seat across from me. “You’re a hard omega to get alone. But not for long.”
I grip my knee so tightly I tear runs in my tights. Saints above, what does he mean by ‘not for long’? “Must be that lockdown on all omegas that’s going on.”
“Ah, yes. I don’t suppose you’ve heard. They found that hood rat alpha you’re so fond of innocent.”
I can’t help the relief that washes through me—even though the mage inspectors only found him innocent of taking Grace Cassidy. They might not even know about the mask. “He’s not my alpha,” I say automatically. “I have no alpha and will have no alpha until my father bids out my mating contracts.”
Rad fixes me with a level stare. “I’m glad you’ve seen sense. He was never good enough for you.”
Ire rises, hot and bitter, in my throat. I want to tell him that Luca is a better alpha than he’ll ever be, but is he? Is the sweet sophomore who swore he’d burn the world to the ground for me really any better than Andrew Radcliffe? Saints, they might even know each other. They could be laughing at me behind my back.
He steeples his fingers and looks at me, cold and assessing. “I’m willing to overlook your past transgressions, even your lost purity, but you should know that I won’t always be so gracious.”
“I-I beg your pardon?” I stammer.
“When I’m your alpha,” he explains patiently, as though talking to a child. “The minute I mark you with my bite, I’ll expect you to be on yourbestbehavior.”
My stomach churns. He’s insane. He has to be. He willneverbe my alpha.
“Of course, I’ll discipline you if I have to. But you’re clever enough. You’ll learn to behave quickly.”
“I-I’m not promised to any alphas at this time. My father isn’t bidding out my contracts until I’ve graduated.”
“I’m a patient alpha. But I told you once: I always get what I want. And what I want, what Iwillpossess, is you. You have my word. You will be mine.”
“Why me?”
He shrugs and stands, then takes my chin in his hand, first tilting my head up so I meet his eyes. My skin crawls at his touch and his scent fills my lungs, making my nose burn and gut churn. He turns my chin until my neck is bared to him and I freeze, the perfect prey to his predator.
Terror courses through me, souring my scent, but that only makes the alpha across from me smile, a lurid baring of his teeth that makes me try to cower away from him—but he holds me too tightly, tightly enough that I know I’ll bruise.
His scent spikes, bitter anise, rotting citrus, when he takes in my panic, and then his thoughts bombard me: a chaotic tangle. A prophecy, a traitor, a hand over an omega’s mouth, a scribe at her throat.
But I’m not the omega in his loathsome hold this time.
It’s Trinity Wells, the omega junior who disdained me in one breath and came to my defense in the next. The junior omega so like me in her rich family’s plans for her: a pawn they can mate off to influential alphas.
“My bite will look so beautiful on your neck.”
The words snap me back to reality, banishing all but faint, whispered echoes of his thoughts from my mind. I don’t say anything. I don’t even move until he draws his hand away, until his overpowering scent lessens.
I tremble when the door clicks shut behind him, take desperate gasping breaths, but it’s like all the air has been sucked from the room.
Marcus wastes no time on Rad. He’s by my side in an instant, dragging me down from the chair and into his arms, helping me move my wooden body until I’m curled up against him, dragging deep breaths of his winter wind and pine scent into my lungs.
