“Sappy,” I tease, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“For you, kit-kat.” He drops a quick kiss on my forehead and oh, I could get used to this. To waking up with this beta padding around my cottage, trying and failing to make me my morning coffee, to the wild disarray of his rust-red curls and the sleepy smile I know is just for me.
“Mind if we split soon? I need to run back to the residence hall, grab a quick shower and a change of clothes.”
I nod against his chest, breathing in his clean, beta scent. Not as alluring as an alpha’s, but a comfort in its own right because this beta, oh how I hope he’ll be mine.
I get ready quickly, trying to ignore the frisson of anxiety I’m picking up from Simon, how his thoughts are full of dread when he tells me, “Hey, kit-kat? There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”
But it’s not his words that send my sweet morning crashing to the ground.
On my doorstep sits a dozen roses, drenched in red. Anise scents the air and I immediately recoil back into my cottage as Marcus drops into a crouch beside the flowers. He investigates them with the tip of his scribe.
“It’s blood,” he mutters, shaking his head. “And there’s a note.” He extricates it from the bouquet and turns the card over.
“‘An early birthday gift for my beloved,’ it says.”
I stumble to the armchair and fall into it, my head spinning.
Rad. Rad left roses on my doorstep.
No alphas besides honor guards are allowed within the wards, and yet an alpha scent I know all too well clings to the misty morning air around my cottage.
“They could be hexed,” Marcus warns as Simon crouches beside the bouquet. “Sweet-tart, sit tight. I’m calling Reinhardt.”
* * *
The roses aren’t hexed,but the blood is real. And human. Omega.
I race to the sink, stumbling blindly, and retch, bile burning up my throat as I lose what little I have in my stomach.
Simon is immediately there with a glass of water and a cool cloth for my face. He helps me back to the armchair once my stomach has settled and tugs Marcus’ offered sweater on over my head.
“I’m excusing you from classes today,” Ian growls, gingerly gathering up the roses in a trash bag.
“No,” I say, my own voice surprising me.
“No?” he echoes, aghast.
“I’m going to class. He wins if I don’t. He wants me afraid. He wants me to spend the entire day wondering how he… how he could get within the wards. Whose blood it is. Make no mistake, Iwillspend the day wondering. But I can’t let him see me weakened. It’s what he wants, and I refuse to give it to him.”
Ian lets out a frustrated growl of a sigh and finally nods. “Class will start thirty minutes late this morning. I have to take these to the headmaster and explain what’s happened.”
“There’s nothing he can do about it.”
“No,” Ian agrees. “But he needs to know. And I need to investigate the warding. No alphas besides honor guards, Professor Cadigan, and I should be permitted within the warding. Something is deeply, deeply amiss.”
“I… I don’t think it’s the first time he’s been inside the wards.”
“What?” Ian demands, alpha energy rippling off him. Power surges through his body, ready to defend. Ready to destroy.
“I thought I was imagining it. It happened a bit before Yule. I told myself it was just Darika’s scent I was catching, or the scent of Alyssa’s spice cookies but… but I think it washis.”
“Two alphas at all times,” Ian growls.
“And you’re not allowed outside this cottage unescorted, even if you’re staying within the residence wards,” Marcus bites out, his own alpha instincts riding him. Saints, they both seem sobig, so powerful, with their instincts so close to the surface. With every one of those instincts telling them to protect me.
I duck my head but nod my understanding.
