Just another tragic statistic.
* * *
Despite being cuddledbetween Luca and Simon, safe in my nest in the pack house, sleep doesn’t find me. I run Leigh’s words over and over in my mind, wishing my life was simpler. Love is a curious thing. It makes us vulnerable, but it also makes us brave. And I so want to be brave for my pack. I want to protect them, just as they protect me.
Rad won’t hesitate to lash out at them or hurt them to get to me. Saints, he already has. Simon still bears the effects of Rad’s cruelty. Rad doesn’t exaggerate, and he doesn’t bluff. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill my alphas and beta to punish me, to teach me a lesson.
The thought of losing them hollows me out, leaving me feeling raw, like every single nerve is exposed. It’s all I can think about as Luca and Simon sleep beside me. How I wouldn’t be able to go on if I lost one of them. It’d be an agony worse than any torture.
When I came to Fairhaven, I wasn’t thinking about love. I was going to stay pure for my father, for my future mates. But love found me, first in the form of the tattooed bad boy with the biggest heart, who’d meet me at our bridge and banish all my fears. And then I met Simon, who once vowed that he’d always look for ways to make me laugh and smile, even in the direst of times. Ian bared his heart to me when he unlocked my magic, when love flowed around us in that small study room in the library. And Marcus, who has been my rock since the very moment I met him, who’s too dear to me in ways he shouldn’t be.
Cassian, who I loved as a girl, who I’m falling in love with again.
To lose even one of them would break me irreparably.
Sorrow lances through me and I feel tears spring to my eyes. I rub at them with the back of my hand, but then I feel the brush of Cassian’s thoughts against mine when my affinity finds him.
It seems I’m not the only one whose thoughts keep them awake.
He’s full of turmoil, anger and pain, his thoughts a barbed, bitter snarl.
I slowly slip from Luca’s arms and silently crawl to the edge of my nest. I make my quiet way down to the kitchen, where Cassian paces in the dark. He rubs at his bare shoulder where his ember is, a grimace of pain flashing across his face.
“Cass?”
“Junes? What are you doing up?”
I pad softly over to him and go into his arms. “I could ask you the same thing, but we both already know the answer.”
He wraps his arms around me and rubs my back, sighing as he breathes in my scent.
“You hate that I’m going home for Yule.”
“I do,” he says, pressing his nose into my hair. “I’ll worry about you every single minute you’re away.”
I melt against him, my eyes fluttering shut. “But you understand why I have to do this?”
“I do,” he says again. “You have more conviction than all of us. We’d leave the world to burn to cinders without a second thought, if it meant keeping you safe. I’m still tempted to throw you on a plane to New Zealand.”
“A sanctuary state won’t save me from my father or Rad. I wish I could say it would even deter them.”
He scoops me up in his arms and takes me over to the sofa, settling down with me in his lap. He can’t seem to stop touching me, stroking my hair, trailing his fingers down my arms, rubbing my back. I lean into every touch.
He’s so safe, so solid and strong. For as long as he holds me, I can pretend there’s no Rad. No Soldiers. No Project Halcyon.
“Ian nearly went after Rad when he came to take you out of class,” Cassian admits.
“Rad would have killed him!”
“Simon and I spent the entire day trying to find Rad after he’d returned you to campus. Simon even tried reverse engineering a new algorithm based on the spell he put on your tracker charm, but it’s like Rad doesn’t exist. His mage tech hides him too well.”
“He has a bodyguard who can literally make your head explode with a thought! Are you all out of your damn minds? You’d never even get close.”
Cassian huffs out a laugh. “None of us are entirely sane when it comes to you,” he admits, sitting me back on his lap so he can look into my eyes. His gaze drops down to my lips and then flicks back up to my eyes. “You bring out our strongest instincts…”
My breath stutters in my lungs as his scent deepens, filling the air with sunshine and sea salt. “What are your instincts telling you to do now?”
His eyes drift to my lips once more and we both lean forward. The first touch of our lips sends emotion blazing through me: safety, love, desire. I part my lips for him, and his tongue slips into my mouth, flicking against mine.
