The mood is especially subduedin our Restorative Magic class. Doctor Mai Huong, commonly just ‘Doc’ around campus is Fairhaven Academy’s chief healer and the lead instructor in our class on the healing arts. One of her alphas, Daniel, helps her teach the class, but they’re never more than friendly toward each other in the classroom. Until today.
The young omega healer is tucked into his arms when Alyssa and I arrive, and only steps out of them when she finally calls our class to order.
“Typically, at this point in the term, we would be reviewing tinctures and healing potions leading up to your final exam, but I’m afraid we have more important material to cover. In lieu of reviewing during our class time, I would be happy to work with you independently or arrange group study sessions for you.”
She strides to the magical model hanging at the front of our classroom. “The material we’ll be covering until finals is, perhaps, the most important you’ll learn in any class on restorative magic: triage and emergency medicine.” She looks around the classroom and smiles at a few students. “I know a few of you have been inspired to continue your studies in the healing arts. Most of you, however, won’t learn much healing beyond what you learn in my classroom. In that case, the single most important thing you can do with healing magic is stabilize someone with a critical injury until a more experienced healer can tend to their care.”
She darts a look to Daniel, then to me and Alyssa. “For many of us, the world is becoming a more dangerous place. A more frightening place. In such a world, the ability to stabilize a classmate, a loved one, or even a stranger critically injured through means magical or otherwise, could mean saving lives. In the direst of situations, it could even be your own life.”
Her gaze flits down to the open textbook on her lectern and then back up to our class. “I sincerely hope you’ll never have to use what I’m about to teach you, but even I’m no longer that optimistic. Let’s begin.”
* * *
Cassian arrivesto our Peer Advising session even earlier than I do, and when I do arrive, he’s agitated, stalking around the small study room, shoving his hands through his dark curls.
“You walked out of Omega Seminar on Wednesday night.”
“Only after everyone else had.”
“I didn’t take you for someone who’d blindly follow their peers like that.”
I arch an eyebrow but take my seat. “Mrs. Parsons made some deeply inappropriate accusations about Trinity. Trinity ismissing, not off fucking some alpha her daddy didn’t approve of. If Trinity had simply run away with a lover, her honor guard wouldn’t be dead right now. Besides, most omegas planning on running away with their mates don’t leave their mate behind.”
Cassian stops pacing suddenly. “She’s mated to Jaime, then? I had suspected a betrothal, but not that they were already mated. Saints, no wonder he’s… he’s… It’s a feeling I understand too well.”
I bristle. Years ago, as I debuted into society as a newly revealed omega, I dashed into Cassian’s arms at my debutante ball, only to be told he had chosen another. This other, some omega I’ve never met, haven’t ever seen him with… he’s had cause to be that worried about her? Saints, IhateCassian Leclerc, so why do I feel so sickeningly, violentlyjealousof this nameless, faceless omega?
“Your classmate is going to petition to be excused from Omega Seminar and I believe the administration will approve her request.” Cassian is quiet for a moment and resumes pacing. “Your admission at Fairhaven is tenuous—not just yours but all omega students. Recent events have allowed the Soldiers of Saint Aldous to apply even greater pressure to the Council of Nine. After August’s decree, Fairhaven took a bold stand against the decree and honored the admissions of its omega students. I can’t say the administration will continue to do so.”
“But Headmaster Langford—”
“Has been overruled by the board before.”
I purse my lips and duck my head, knowing such a time far too intimately. “I know. He expelled Andrew Radcliffe and look how that turned out.” I slump in my seat, dropping any pretense of acting like a proper omega around Cassian. “He’s still here, following me. Threatening me. Telling me we’ll be mated.”
Cassian stops abruptly, his scent spiking, flooding the small study room until it smells like a perfect day at the beach: sea salt and summer sunshine, made sharper by the rage pouring off of him. “He’s been following you? Fucking saints, he threatened you and suggested you wouldeverbe his mate? Never. You willneverbe mated to a thug like Radcliffe.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say quietly. Once, years ago, my naive heart had hoped Cassian would be one of my alphas, that he would be the one to protect me from the evils of the world.
He chose someone else.
But it’s me he drops to his knees in front of, one hand on either arm of my chair. It’s my eyes he looks up into, fear in his own smoke-and-whiskey depths. It’s me he begs.
“You have to leave Fairhaven, Juniper. Please. You must reconsider. I know what your education means to you, but none of it will matter if you wind up dead—or worse, mated to that sadistic piece of shit. Please, Junes.Please.”
His voice is rough, as though he’s barely holding back the same tears that run down my cheeks.
I blink them away but still they fall—and so do I. I shove my chair back and drop to my knees before my sweet summer love, the boy who broke my heart, the man who begs me to do what I must to be safe.
“I can’t, Cass. I’m safer here than I am at home. My father—” I shake my head and grit my teeth, closing my eyes tightly.
“I can’t bear the thought of you being back under that bastard’s roof,” he swears.
“I have to. I have to pretend I don’t know what he did to me. I have to do whatever it takes to stay here. Fairhaven may be a pit of vipers and I know I’m not safe. Saints do I ever know it. But at least there aresomepeople I can trust here.”
And with as vulnerable as I’ve been in front of my teenage love, I hope to every saint I can name that he’s one of them.
* * *
