“The wards we practiced,” Ian grits out. “What about the wards? Please tell me you cast every single one.” He squeezes his hand into a fist so tight it turns his knuckles white as he fights his alpha instincts, the instincts telling him to rage, to mete out his revenge. My revenge.
I shake my head. “I was tapped out. I didn’t have enough magic to cast anything more than the weakest ward, and Rad broke through it easily. My affinity had just come back…”
“Juniper,” Cassian says, and his voice shakes as he tries to restrain his fury. “Why didn’t you have your magic?”
“Rad and Willow tested me for an affinity.”
My scent sours at the frightful memory, and Luca immediately feels the way I freeze in his arms.
“How? How did they test you for an affinity?”
I shake my head and fight against the tears welling in my eyes, pressing my lips together to keep them from trembling.
My men surround me in an instant, drawing me down to the floor in front of the fireplace. They hold me, each of them touching me, stroking me. Three alpha purrs rumble to life in my alphas’ chests, and my tears fall.
I stumble through the story, telling them how I was bound to a table, how Rad set his scribe to my skin, how whatever hellish hex he cast wrapped dark magic around my heart.
“He said a word of power, but I don’t remember what it was. But it was like… like my heart could barely beat. Willow tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t.”
I don’t tell them how many times Rad hexed me to get me to break, to make me snap.
I don’t tell them I thought I was going to die on that table.
But somehow, they know. My men hold me tighter and they stroke my skin, layering their scents, sharp with rage and fear, over mine.
“I tried to resist. I tried to keep my power hidden, but I couldn’t control it. I used my affinity to command him to stop. My magic failed me after that, but not before I’d fried the monitor they hooked me up to. Willow declared the test inconclusive, but she knows I have an affinity, just as well as Rad does. I just don’t know if she revealed it to my father or not. My magic didn’t return until the night of Yule and by then my heat had started, and I grew weak and confused.”
“But he didn’t touch you,” Cassian insists, hands roving over my body, though he knows I’m uninjured. “Juniper, tell me that piece of shit didn’t touch you.”
“He didn’t. Hawthorn intercepted him before he could and bought me some time. He brought me my coat and boots and told me you all were waiting for me. But Rad would have hurt me. He was furious and embarrassed after he failed to test my affinity. I hurt him again, like I did in the old temple.”
“Good,” Ian snarls. “I wish you would have killed him.”
“You’re safe now,” Cassian promises, holding me close and kissing my forehead. “You’re safe, and I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
I nod against him. My mate. The alpha who saved me from a monster.
“They’re testing other omegas for affinities like Rad tested me,” I say. “I caught some of Willow’s thoughts as we were driving to the facility. She magically blinded me somehow.”
“You said she told Rad to stop?” Simon muses. “Not peak villainess behavior.”
“Willow’s been… weird since this summer.” I sit up with a start, remembering my sister’s whispered conversation on the flight home.
“What is it?” Cassian demands. “What did she do to you?”
I shake my head. “She called someone from the plane after she thought I’d passed out. She was talking to someone named Graeme, asking if the omegas were safe.”
Simon sits bolt upright beside me. “Wait, Graeme, as in Royal Detective Inspector, Graeme?”
“It has to be, right? But there’s more. My affinity came back when she was driving us to volunteer on Yule morning. She was thinking of a conversation she’d had with my father. She disappointed him and he was furious with her. Willow runs one of Rose Pharmaceuticals’ R&D labs, and twenty omegas escaped under her watch. My father thought it was a resistance interloper freeing the omegas, but I’m not so sure.”
“The resistance hasn’t been able to get anyone into Rose Pharmaceuticals,” Ian says, his brow creasing in a frown. “Not a scientist, not even a maintenance worker. Unless Graeme has someone on the inside we don’t know about, there’s no resistance interloper.”
“What the actual fuck?” Simon mutters. “I have to break into her phone records, get a key logger or something buried in the OS…”
“OS? Is that like the cloud?” I ask, feigning ignorance. I know what an operating system is. Sort of. Mostly.
Simon shoots me an incredulous glower before he catches my teasing smirk. “Ah, my beautiful, bratty kit-kat. I adore the hell out of you.”
