Soft laughter drifts into the hall from the dining room but ceases the moment I take my seat at the table.
There is no chaos at Rose family Yule celebrations. We speak in low voices over dinner, as quiet piano music plays from the great hall. Even Aspen’s triplets, turning four in a few months, are quiet and subdued as course after course of exquisite food is set before us.
I’d trade every gourmet dish for a cup of instant noodles in my cottage, a plate of cookies shared with the other omegas in the omega lodge, or a pizza-with-everything in one of Simon’s blanket forts. Anything where the quiet—when there even is any—isn’t quite so stifling. I’d trade the elegant hunter green lace dress for leggings and fuzzy socks in a heartbeat, for Marcus’ thick, cabled Fisherman sweater or, I realize with a pang, one of Luca’s flannels.
Saints, how had I never noticed just how tense these dinners were before? I feel like I’m walking through a minefield as I try to navigate the subdued conversations happening around me.
Hawthorn, the one ally I thought I had amongst my backstabbing family, will scarcely say more than a word to me. But he’ll gladly talk to Aspen and Willow. “Despite setbacks, I believe my division is on track for an excellent quarter, if we lean into current research regarding—”
“Now, now,” my father says, smiling what he must intend to be a jovial, fatherly smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes, pale blue like mine—which glint instead of twinkle. “Yule isn’t the time to talk business. Let us simply enjoy each other’s company in the few days we have together.”
After the Rose New Year’s Gala, my father and brothers will return to work, to their Manhattan penthouses, leaving me alone with Willow and a small household staff for the rest of break.
Claire leans toward me, covering the ears of the nearest triplet with her hands. “Did you know the omega that went missing at Fairhaven?”
My father and Aspen shoot her identical suppressive looks, but she ignores them, or perhaps doesn’t notice them at all. “I know Trinity Wells, the student that went missing,” I clarify, “but not the omega who went missing from the city of Fairhaven.”
“You and Trinity are not unalike,” Aspen observes, coolly. “The only omega daughters in influential families. If an omega like her can be taken, I’m sure you must feel unsafe.”
I look down then up at my father through my lashes. “I do, sometimes, but I want to do the brave thing and stay, like Father said. My honor guard never lets me out of his sight, and he’s quite capable. I feel safer with him nearby.”
“I heard you were attacked,” Hawthorn says, his voice sharp—and not out of concern. Saints, the younger of my two brothers has never been this cold to me before, this uncaring and cruel.
“A misunderstanding,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Let us not talk about attacks with the little ones present,” Claire pleads, reaching for Aspen’s hand, taking comfort in his touch.
“Indeed,” my father says. “Suffice it to say, Hawthorn, Aspen, your younger sister is being very brave, and I’m exceedingly proud of her. Especially since I just received her grades.”
I startle and look up. “Oh, I hadn’t checked my email yet today. I trust they’re acceptable, Father?”
“More than.” He levels a stern stare at Hawthorn. “I would have liked to see your brother be as devoted to his studies as you are.”
“Anything to make you proud,” I lie, pasting on my sweetest, most obedient smile, my insides churning all the while.
* * *
By the timewe’ve moved into the front salon and gathered around the stately Yule tree to open gifts, fatigue has sunken deep into my bones, the result of too many days spent thrashing in my nest and too few nights sleeping as my heat tormented me.
Still, though I feel snappish, I put on the perfect omega act I’ve spent two years perfecting. I’m gracious when I receive impersonal gifts from my brothers: a book on comportment for omegas mated to large packs from Hawthorn and a golden pen engraved with my name from Aspen. I even manage to smile—and catch Willow doing the same—when we open nearly identical pairs of diamond solitaire earrings from each other. Impersonal and elegant, just as it always has been in our family. But when I see the trousseau chest half hidden behind the tree, a blood-red bow wrapped around it, my stomach sinks.
“Fine china and linens,” my father explains. “To take with you when you’re mated.”
“But that’s years away, still,” I say weakly.
“And you will be prepared to do me proud, daughter,” he says, a dangerous edge to his voice.
Little Candace lets out a bright, cheery shriek, the loudest thing anyone of us has heard all day, and immediately bangs her little hands on the keys of the piano. “Oh, thank you, Auntie June!”
If only looks could kill, my eldest brother would be appropriately and publicly mourning my death, standing somber before the press as he talks about the great loss of his dearest sister.
Harper finds the xylophone, and out of the corner of my eye, I just catch Hawthorn’s smirk.
When the racket becomes too much, I excuse myself, claiming a headache as I recover from my heat, and leave them all to the noise of exuberant children, enjoying their Yule.
As it should be.
I dive straight into the books Ian gave me, desperate for the comfort I won’t find in my family, even as we celebrate one of magekind’s most important holidays, and a note slips out of the first book when I open it.
