If Rad can get this close, I don’twantto be caught alone outside the safety of my cottage.
“We’re putting another deadbolt on your door,” Ian mutters.
If only any of us thought that would be enough.
* * *
There’sa particular peace that can only be found in the pages of an old book, curled up in an armchair before a roaring fire, which is where I find myself that Thursday evening. It’s my first night working through affinity research with Sienna and just being surrounded by the old books, nothing expected of me but to read and learn, is a much-needed comfort after Rad’s gruesome gift.
“Most historians say Saint Marmora was the storm mage, but some scholars, myself included, believe it was actually his omega mate, Guinnette,” Sienna says.
“You think her storm magic was an affinity!” When Luca had mentioned it before when we rode his motorcycle up the coast of Deer Island, I’d assumed Guinnette being a storm mage was only a myth.
She favors me with a sage nod.
“That’s why it’s called Guinnette’s Cove?”
“That’s my belief, yes. You must realize, Pack Marmora didn’t name anything but their settlement. It was the following generation that mapped the whole of the island and put names to all the landmarks we know today.”
“They were a pack? Not just mates?”
“Oh yes. Marmora, Briac, Aldric, and Guinnette were a pack. Like you, Guinnette was a potent omega. Historians often thought it took larger packs to control omegas like Guinnette. For Pack Marmora, if Guinnette’s diaries are to be believed, it was never about control. Their pack bonds were deep, and they mated her to free her. To unleash her and her power on the world, because they loved her.”
I gaze into the fire. “It sounds like a fairytale.”
“Doesn’t it? Their pack must have been quite strong. Mages are almost always strongest in packs. It hasn’t been studied nearly enough in my opinion, but some believe a mage’s power is amplified through the mating process. It’s a treacherous gambit, though. Perhaps you’ll find a pack who wants to free you, to unleash you and your power on the world. Or, perhaps your power will be a draw to the wrong types of mages,” she said pointedly.
I flick my eyes over to her. “Like Andrew Radcliffe. Would he be strengthened by my power if he were to mate me?”
“Undoubtedly. A troubling thought, isn’t it?”
“Deeply,” I murmur.
Sienna keeps me late into the night and I help her catalog three wooden crates full of rare texts: diaries of omega mages.
“You might think of a diary as a sort of history. When our stories are overlooked, when the histories thatwerecaptured get destroyed, we can turn to these personal histories to paint a better picture of the times.”
“Our stories?”
She smiles sadly. “You hadn’t heard? I’m an omega, or I was. I wanted to pursue my PhD in a time when omegas weren’t welcome in doctoral programs. There was an experimental treatment that promised to turn me into a beta—to remove my omega characteristics. It was actually a Rose Pharmaceuticals treatment, most likely from your grandfather’s time at the company’s helm. It went wrong, as clinical trials sometimes do, but it was enough of a change for me to legally appeal to have my designation changed, and enough to get me into a PhD program overseas, where I met Martin.”
She stares into the open crate she’s working through. “I don’t regret it, but I regret that I thought it was my only option. The treatment never made it to the market, not surprisingly. But I think, perhaps, Rose Pharmaceuticals is involved in many such treatments.”
I look down at the diary I was browsing through. “I don’t think the serum my father used to lock my magic was ever intended to make it to the market, but I don’t for a second believe that it won’t be used again.”
I don’t know Sienna enough to trust her with the truth of my father’s business, not when all I have is speculation.
Not when I still don’t know what my father’s dastardly end goal might be.
* * *
“Turn all that pain into anger,”Ian says quietly, as stand across from him, trying to call my affinity for the second time.
I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath. I drowned in my sadness, but holding onto my fury, onto every injustice committed against my kind, I soar. Power whips out of me like a geyser until my mind links with Ian’s and his thoughts flow through our connection back to me.
Pride. Admiration. Joy.
Love.
