“I will never let you come to harm?”
“The other.”
“My darling?” He releases my hands and pulls me into his arms and the tension floods out of me. “Never, my darling. I willneverlet anything happen to you.”
He strokes my hair away from my face, trails the backs of his knuckles down my cheek, and I lean up into the touch, my eyes fluttering shut.
“Thank you.” I fist my hands in his shirt, breathing him in. I know we only get this: a stolen moment of comfort we’ll never speak of. Just this, but it’s enough to vanquish my demons, if only for now.
* * *
With the endof term just under two weeks away, our Omega Seminar is a somber affair.
“Still no ransom?” Ellie whispers as Leigh passes out a stack of handouts.
Bridget shakes her head. “No. Nothing.”
Leigh shoots us a severe look. “You’re both being dramatic. With no ransom demanded, it’s likely that Trinity simply ran away to be with a lover. It happens all the time and I suspect Trinity had more than her share of alphas. Omegas like her usually do.”
“You absolute bitch,” Bridget fumes, jumping up from her seat.
“Oh shit,” Bitsy muttered. “Leigh fucked up…”
“No one demanded a ransom for Grace either, though her pack would payanythingfor her safe return. Grace didn’t run off with a lover.She loves her pack, and they fucking adore her. And she wastaken. Just like Trinity. You lecture us about being good omegas and getting good packs so we can be safe, but you know what? It’s all fuckingbullshitand you’re just another pathetic omega with no control over her life trying to make the rest of us feel like shit. You think you’re doing us any favors, teaching us to be good little house omegas? Well, fuck you. You’re part of the problem and I’m sick and fucking tired of it.”
Bridget grabs her bag, jerkily shoulders into her coat, and stomps out of the room, slamming the door to the omega lodge behind her.
“You know I’m with Bridget,” Bitsy says, staring our Omega Seminar instructor down.
One by one, the other omegas stand and leave the room until I’m the only one who remains.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she says, watching the door slam shut behind Alyssa.
“So do I,” I tell her, and I, too, leave the omega lodge.
We gather in front of Trinity’s cottage, stamping our feet and rubbing our hands to ward off the cold.
“Trinity would never…” Bridget begins, but we all know. Trinity didn’t run off with an alpha because the alpha she loves is right here at Fairhaven, mourning her.
My phone chimes from my pocket and I ignore it. It chimes twice more and then rings and I finally draw it out, seeing Simon’s name on the screen.
His words come out in a rush when I pick up the phone. “I know you’re in class, but my script mining the Fairhaven PD came back with an alert. Nick’s body just washed up on the western shore.”
I’m stunned silent, unable to speak until he says my name again, and then again.
“Oh saints,” I whisper. “Oh no.” I turn to my fellow omegas, and they see the fear, the despair, in my slack jaw and wide eyes.
“Trinity’s honor guard was found dead.”
CHAPTER12
Speculation rolls across the campus like fog when the news of Nick’s death breaks, but one thing is clear as a somber quiet settles over Fairhaven Academy: Trinity Wells probably won’t be coming back, not to the academy, not to her family, not to her inconsolable alpha.
Orange and anise washes over me as Andrew Radcliffe cuts by me on the path, bodily bumping into me and making me stumble. He nods to the quad where a desperate Jaime is handing out flyers and begging anyone who will listen for any information related to Trinity’s disappearance.
He says just three words to me before carrying on toward his morning classes: “Traitors must suffer.”
* * *
