Let her have a tragic accident like that Lindstrom omega did.
“Stop,” Ian demands. “Juniper, stop!”
I open my eyes, my lashes drenched from the silent tears that spill down my cheeks. He sets his hands on my shoulders, making me look up into his soft blue eyes, and a hiccupping sob escapes me.
“What happened?” he asks, and while his words are gentle, alpha energy pours off of him, instincts calling on him to protect me, to comfort me. To take me into his arms and chase my pain away.
“I dug deep. I’ve only ever done this when I’ve been emotional.”
“And so you hurt yourself?”
Saints above, there’s suchlovein his gaze, so much tenderness in the way his eyes shine with unshed tears. So much that I nearly miss the flicker that belies it all, the alpha instinct that makes this alpha soft, just for me: blind, protective rage.
It’s just a flicker, the barest glimmer, absent on his face but not in his thoughts.
* * *
I’m wornto the point of tears by the time I step out into the library’s basement, fatigue settling into my bones. I’m exhausted and shaken, from my lesson, from the chaos of Night of the Fallen.
So seeing Simon sitting at the same café table as Marcus, a steaming hot chocolate ready for me, is what finally breaks me.
Tears cascade down my cheeks and my sweet beta gathers me into his arms, tucking me beneath his chin until my sobbing stops.
When I ask him to come back to my nest this time, he doesn’t hesitate.
* * *
Simon dutifully handsme blankets and pillows as I rebuild my nest, and slowly, slowly, my sobs quiet. My tears dry on my cheeks and my sniffles stop.
I’m left wrung out and numb, but Simon fills the void inside me with sweetness. He bundles me into arms beneath the warm glow of my nest’s twinkle lights and reads to me out of the Saint Rosamund biography on my nightstand while I drink the best cocoa Ellie’s ever made. It’s not quite as good as Alyssa’s, a bit tepid after our walk back to the omega residences, but Simon more than makes up for it, filling me with sweetness and warmth.
“I hate that this is what it takes,” Simon mutters as he tucks a blanket around us.
I nuzzle into his chest. “We don’t know that it’s what it takes, just that it’s what it took those other times. I need to learn all I can—and then I need to master this. It could mean… saints, it could mean everything.”
“It could,” he mutters. “I finally got a ping on that code you gleaned from your brother.”
I sit up just enough to look down into his hazel eyes, a golden brown under the soft glow of the twinkle lights. “What is it?”
“It’s the serial number for a container on a container ship. It’s clearly some kind of shipment, but I haven’t been able to uncover a manifest yet. At least I know where to look now, though.”
“Aspen mentioned a container,” I say around a yawn. “Something shipped by Rose Pharmaceuticals, maybe?”
“Not as far as I can tell—at least, not under that name.”
“That’s damning.”
“Exactly what I thought. But I won’t stop looking, not until I’ve found out what your family is hiding.”
“I know you won’t,” I murmur, exhaustion finally claiming me. I let myself fall asleep in Simon’s arms as he rubs my back and whispers sweetness in my ear.
* * *
I wakethe next morning to an empty nest and the absolute chaos of Simon trying to make me a pour-over coffee down in the kitchenette. I come up behind him, hug him around the middle, nuzzling into his shoulder, and switch off the electric kettle.
“Ciel’s my treat this morning.”
“You’re my treat this morning,” he says, turning and taking me into his arms.
