“Not if it means your safety, Junes. I don’t want your father knowing where the townhouse is. It’s too dangerous for both you and Simon. Just accept this, please? For me?”
I swallow hard and nod. I hadn’t considered it being about Simon’s safety, too. Saints, I’ve brought such darkness into my sweet beta’s life.
“I know that look,” Simon growls. “Stop, kit-kat. Stop blaming yourself and let me cuddle the shit out of you in the back of this fancy-ass SUV. All right? Ah, but first, I need your phone. Not your burner, your family phone. Because I fucking guarantee your father is tracking you that way, too.”
I hand the phone over and he performs a quick spell, then taps out a string of characters. The phone restarts and Simon swipes through a few menus before nodding to himself.
“You’re safe now. It’ll register your location as your cottage or wherever you’re meant to be on campus during classes. Tidy little script, if I do say so myself.”
“Genius,” I murmur.
“A little,” he admits, a slight teasing smile gracing his lips. It makes him look as young as he is, less exhausted by too many nights of nightmares. “Come on, I can’t wait for you to see the townhouse’s nest.”
* * *
The townhouseCassian closed on at the end of last school year isn’t a simple townhome. It’s a full-on pack house in a gated community of other pack houses. Tucked into a cul-de-sac on a tree-lined street behind both physical and magical gates, the pack house is three stories tall with a six-car garage and a full basement.
An open-concept living room, dining room and kitchen take up the lower floor, with a den tucked back near the stairs up from the garage.
There are three bedrooms and a study on the second floor, with two additional bedrooms and a nest on the third.
“Comeon,” Simon moans as I poke my head into one of the unused, but tastefully furnished, bedrooms. “I spent weeks on the nest, and I can’t wait for you to see it!”
He covers my eyes with his hands just as Luca had when showing me the nest he’d built in his dorm room, and my heart flutters in my chest. He guides me inside, not letting me stumble, and then drops his hands.
The nest is a thing of absolute beauty.
The rest of the house is decorated in tasteful neutrals, but here Simon has decorated using soft, soothing pastels. Gauzy drapes surround the sunken mattress, held back by silver hooks. It’s filled with fluffy pillows and silky blankets, all arranged under the soft glow of twinkle lights.
I don’t hesitate. I dive straight into the pillows with a squeal, beckoning Simon to follow me down onto the squishy mattress. He crawls in next to me, pulling me into his arms and into a kiss that’s a whole summer spent apart in the making.
It’s deep and desperate, seeking and assuring all at once. It’s safe and it’s dangerous and saints, how I’ve missed this man.
“I love you,” I murmur.
“Love you more,” he whispers, covering my face in kisses. The sweetness is nearly enough to break me again, but then there’s a knock at the nest’s open door.
Cassian goes to say something, but footsteps thunder up the stairs and, in an instant, I’m in Luca’s arms, the leather of his jacket cool against my skin, his wine-and-juicy-cherries scent filling my lungs. He buries his nose in my neck, drawing in my scent, and as he murmurs my name, I notice he’s shaking.
His instincts ride him hard, and he ghosts his hands over every inch of my body as if making sure I’m in one piece. That I’m safe and that I’m here with him.
He presses a desperate kiss to my lips, then to my cheek, my jaw, the pale skin of my throat when the bruises he finds there make him growl.
“Never again, princess,” he vows. He nuzzles my skin, marking me with his scent, but there’s a desperation behind the action that makes my heart lodge in my throat. Fear flashes in his sea green eyes, but it vanishes in an instant, replaced by raw, alpha power, fury like I’ve never seen before. He buries his face in the crook of my neck once more, holding me so tightly I can feel the hammering of his heart. Strength ripples through his body, alpha dominance pouring off of him. “I’m going to fucking kill that piece of shit.”
“He’s hundreds of miles away,” I protest.
“I’ll drive through the night if I have to,” he growls against my skin.
Why does that growled oath heat my blood like it does?
“Luca, you can’t. They’ll throw you back in prison and I… I need you here. With me.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Ian says from the doorway, where he’s standing with Marcus. “I’ll finish what I started last Yule.”
“It should be me,” Marcus says quietly.
I look up sharply. “You can’t,” I say, weakly.
