“Taken from me, yes, but not by you. It would be so much easier to do this if you were awful to me.” That gives me an idea, however much I hate it. “I think that’s the key. I may notbe able to command you to stop firing sparks at me, but maybe I can command you to stop deriding me. If you were to say cruel things…”
“Absolutely the fuck not,” Cassian mutters. “Not ever, Junes.”
“There’s nothing in the world worth what you’re asking us to do, my darling. Nothing. I couldn’t live with myself if I said a cross word against you.”
I slump against the training room wall. “You refuse to hurt me, and I won’t hurt you. We’re at a standstill.”
Cassian sighs. “You won’t hurt us if you command us, love. It doesn’t hurt you, does it?”
I bite my lip in frustration and shake my head. “It used to hurt my head when I resisted, but it doesn’t anymore.”
“You’ve grown stronger,” Ian remarks.
I sigh. “I guess we can go again. One more time. I’ll try to give it my all.”
This time, before my mates even raise their scribes, I call my magic, settling into the well of power that is my affinity. I let it flow through me, lighting me up until I feel like a live wire.
Ian raises his scribe, a split-second away from casting a spell against me.
“STOP!”
The spell dies on his lips, and his arm goes rigid.
I whirl on Cassian and issue the same command. He stumbles out of his attacking lunge, body going completely still. Still as he may be, there’s a sparkle in his whiskey-dark eyes. A sparkle that lets me know I’ve done it. I’ve intentionally commanded not one, but two alphas.
“There you are,” Ian murmurs, pride in his voice. “I knew you could do it, Juniper.”
Despite practicingmy other affinity skills with my pack, I try to glimpse the future alone, in my nest, one more time. I see the same thing I saw the last time. An omega in an omega trap, begging for mercy as an Ever Ember hex burns through her mate’s heart.
I seek the future until I’m crying, and blood trickles from my nose, but I know what I need to do now. I need my pack and the comforts they offer to banish the darkness I sought.
I feel their concern through our bonds, and before I can even stand, they’re thundering up the stairs to my nest.
“What is it?” Simon demands of Cassian. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s upset and, oh?—”
Cassian crashes to the soft floor of my nest and drags me into his arms as I sniffle. Simon joins him, gently combing his fingers through my hair. Before long, the scents of my pack surround me. Luca and Ian take my hands, rub my back, my legs, whatever they can touch, and I let their scents carry me away from the terrors I chased.
Luca dries my tears, and Ian presses a kiss to my palm.
“You were supposed to come to one of us, my darling. You don’t have to do this on your own. We want to help you.”
“You’re our mate, our omega, our love,” Cassian says softly. “Let us help.”
I nod against him just as Marcus reaches the top of the stairs. I look up sharply at his presence and try to read him, desperate to know what he’s thinking. Does he hurt when I hurt? Does he long to be part of my pack like I long for him, even though he lied to me? I get nothing from him. Stonewalled again.
“What is it, sweet-tart?” he asks, voice solemn.
I look up at him through eyes reddened from tears. “It’s nothing.”
But it isn’t. It’s so much more than nothing. I used to confide my fears in him, but now I won’t even tell him whatI’ve told my pack: that I’m trying to call visions. Saints, before my affinity revealed his lie, he was practically as close to me as my mates are. More than a friend, less than a lover, but so, so dear to me.
And now I’m withdrawing from him, pushing him away. All over a lie nearly two years in the making. He’s not immune to me, but what does that mean in the face of his dishonesty? I wish I knew.
I can’t keep the coldness from my voice when I tell him, “I’m having a moment with my pack. Please close the door on your way out.”
While I don’t withdrawfrom Simon and my alphas any longer, only casting for visions with one or more of them around, I feel disconnected from them. Between helping the omegas, gearing up for finals, and training in my own affinity, I’m busy and tired. So, so tired. Every time I try to see deeper into my grim vision, something dark settles in my stomach. Combined with the more joyful visions Luca coaxes out of me when I practice with him, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope high over an abyss.
