“I kept it to remind myself what the cost of my freedom was. To know that I got a second chance I didn’t deserve because I pretended to be one ofthem. I never would have put it back on. Not until I thought I could use it to help keep you safe.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and force a nod. A hot knot of tears chokes me, and I can barely force my next question out around it. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
He glances up over my shoulder at Cassian and all the agony crashing through me turns to rage.
“Tell me,” I press.
“I wanted to. Saints know I nearly told you a hundred times. But there was a chance I’d lose you after midterms. Everything… everything we had, could have been just a fond memory for you. Cassian didn’t want me to break your heart if you weren’t going to get to stay at Fairhaven.”
I stare resolutely ahead, because if I turn around, I’m going to hurtle myself out of my chair and try to claw Cassian’s stupid, smug eyes out.
“He doesn’t get to decide what happens between us,” I grind out.
Luca draws two small, folded booklets from his back pocket and sets them on the table in front of me. “He did when he was the one that could get us out of the country if you couldn’t call your magic. Look, Cassian knows shit. I don’t know how and if you want to know, that’s between you and him. But he knew what I was doing. And he knew I was doing it to keep you safe. He had already been making plans to get you out of the country, but when we discovered your father had locked your magic… I went straight to Cassian. Because he could do what I couldn’t. He could get you to a sovereign sanctuary state like Guyana or New Zealand, where the deportation of omegas is prohibited.”
I pick up the two passports with shaking hands and flip the first one open. I stare down at my own face beneath a new name. A whole new identity. I open the other and my breath stalls in my chest. Just the two passports. One for me and one for Luca.
“These are for a mated couple. We’re not—”
“I would have mated you, if you’d consented.”
“To save me and get me out of the country?” There’s an ugly sharpness to my voice that I immediately regret, but Luca only shakes his head sadly.
“No, Junie. Saints save me because I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I would have mated you in an instant if you’d ever asked. And I would now. I love you and… and you’re it for me. But that wasn’t ever going to be enough. If we were going to escape, we needed papers. Funds. Flights. Cassian could do that for you. And I would have been the lucky bastard who got to have a life with you. It wouldn’t have been an easy life, not the kind of life you deserve, but it would have been ours, and I would have done everything in my power to make you happy.”
I grit my jaw even as tears slip down my cheeks, hot against my skin. “It would have been enough for me.” I let out a shaky break and realize with a sharp squeeze of my heart that Luca just told me he loved me for the very first time.
I want to shove my chair back so fast it clatters to the ground, round the table, and throw myself into his arms. I want to be who we used to be together, but too much has changed. Too much I can’t even properly take in at once. “I need time to think. I don’t… I don’t know if…” I press my lips together to stop them from trembling.
“I’m not asking anything of you, Juniper. Not even your forgiveness. I told you this doesn’t have to change things and I meant it.”
“Can we… can we talk after Yule break? Please?” My voice cracks on a broken sob, but I need there to be something more. Anything. As long as this isn’t the end.
“Anything, Juniper,” he says, looking at me through eyes shining with tears. “Always.”
“Don’t hurt him when you want to hurt me. Don’t string him along,” Cassian says, his voice hard.
I do shove my chair back now, snatch my bag up off the floor, take one last look at the alpha who would have made a life with me, and turn on the alpha who wouldn’t. Saints, my hand itches and I want to slap the smug expression off Cassian’s face.
But he would have saved me, would have given me a life with the alpha I love. “You’re not my fucking alpha, Cassian, nor will you ever be. So stop trying to control my life. If I wanted an alpha to push me around, I’d marry whatever assholes my father wants me to. Not you.Neveryou.”
I shove past him, throw the door to the study room open and storm out, my breath a weak, brittle thing in my lungs.
I dash down the stairs, desperate to feel the bitter sting of icy winter air against my heated skin, feeling like I’m about to erupt, and I do: in sobs that wrack my body, make me shake and shiver in Marcus’ arms as he keeps me from tumbling into the free fall of hope and despair that tries to claim me.
CHAPTER15
The ride back to Greenwich is even more somber than the first leg of my journey to Fairhaven in late August, the day just as gray. Today, though, the clouds that cling close to the winding road are laden with snow, not rain. Perfect for a picturesque Yule.
Marcus fiddles with the radio until a pop station plays and I look over at him with a faint frown. I won’t admit it out loud because the feelings I have for my honor guard are already inappropriate enough, but I can’t imagine passing the next three weeks without him. His presence has become so intertwined into my daily life, his strength something I so often borrow, that I scarcely know how I’ll survive these weeks without him.
Especially under my father’s roof.
“You’ll call me if you need me?”
“I will, but I won’t. You deserve some time off with your family.”
Marcus shrugs noncommittally. “After the whole term together, driving you home feels wrong.”
