“I promise. Besides, I’ll have Marcus if my father tries anything, which I doubt he’ll do in a crowded restaurant anyway.”
My father setsinto me the moment I slip into the back of the town car he’s arranged. Though my father protested that Marcus would be unnecessary, I told him I’d be the judge of that, not him, so Marcus sits in the front seat beside the driver, hand grasping his knee so tightly his knuckles are white.
“I have a surprise for you, daughter,” my father says, a note of dark glee in his voice.
I want to lash out, to tell him everything I think of him and condemn what I’m sure will be an awful surprise, but I have to be on my best behavior today to keep him from suspecting the real reason I’ve joined him. He knows he can project thoughts into my mind. He may even know I can read minds, but if that’s the case, then he’s walking right into the trap I’ve laid for him. I sit demurely beside him, myhands folded in my lap, as he flicks through something on his phone.
I center myself and let my affinity flow, but when I try to read him, it’s like encountering a brick wall. With a frown, I try again, but his mind is utterly sealed off to me. Fuck. I’ll have to keep trying.
When we reach the restaurant in downtown Fairhaven, I understand my father’s sick surprise. It’s the same restaurant Rad took me to in a collared dress, the same restaurant where he slapped me in front of the restaurant’s patrons. The clip of him hitting me, recorded by one of the other diners, got out and helped lead to Rad’s downfall, but I’ll remember the sting of his strike for as long as I live. I don’t even remember what I said to incense him so, just the excruciating pain of his blow, the bite of the collared dress he made me wear around my neck. My father won’t hurt me the way Rad did, but he has his own ways, and his own devious methods. I squirm, fear spiking and souring my scent. My father merely grins that shrewd smile of his as he stalks ahead of me.
Marcus sets a light hand on my shoulder and squeezes, his pine-and-winter-wind scent surrounding me. I let my eyes flutter shut and draw in a deep breath, finding my courage. When we enter the restaurant, Marcus takes the same spot he took beside Blair when Rad brought me here, heavily scrutinizing my father as he does.
My father orders pork medallions marsala for me, something he knows I detest, just as Rad once ordered for me. It makes me bristle; I have a voice of my own, but people like my father want to silence me, even in matters as trivial as ordering in a restaurant.
“So, daughter, how are you enjoying pack life?” He sneers the word ‘pack’ just as he’s done before, and it’s like an arrow to my heart. “I’m sure the Leclerc boy will come to regret buying you at some point.”
I shut my eyes for a second, refusing to let my father see the pain in them. I know it’s not true, but Cassiandidwire my father a handsome sum of money to buy out my mating contracts. Cassian didn’t see it as buying me, but I did, and the accusation makes my shoulders pinch together.
“You, Juniper, are only as worthy as your affinity,” he says in a low voice, so he won’t be overheard by the other diners. “Nothing else. Only that. Now that I can’t make money off you anymore, that’s all you’re worth to me and to society. One of these days, your pack will realize the same. I know you saw what I wanted you to see at the Lunar Ball. How inconvenient your affinity must be if you can be taken down so easily. At least your precious pack came to your rescue. You must be dying to know what it all means.”
I am, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I push my food around my plate and try reaching out with my affinity again. Reading people like this has become as easy to me as breathing, but my father stonewalls me again. How?
“It will come to pass,” he promises me. “All of it and more. And your pack won’t be able to stop it. They won’t be able to save you.”
Our ride back is stiff and quiet, and I try to keep my tears from falling, fighting the way my eyes burn. Saints, my father still knows how to hurt me, to pierce my heart and weaken me with every mean-spirited barb he can think of.
I’m glad to escape the town car and my father, but his words follow me, repeating over and over in my head.
They won’t be able to save you.
As soon aswe’re out of sight of my father, Marcus takes my hand as we walk across the empty campus. He bore witness to all of that, to my weakness in front of my father, to mypathetic inability to fight back. What will he think of me when I tell him it was all for naught? That my father laid into me until I reached the point of tears, while I achieved nothing at all? I couldn’t read my father. I’ve failed. The moment we reach the omega residences, making for the SUV parked just beyond, I throw myself into his arms, letting out a sob, my tears soaking his dark gray henley.
He strokes my hair, letting me weep. “Oh, Juniper. Hey. It’s all right. You’re safe now. I promise you’re safe.”
He holds me so sweetly, even after we fought, even in this tenuous place between us. He runs his hands up and down my back and presses my head into his neck where I can breathe in the comfort of his scent, just like an alpha would do for his mate.
“I didn’t get anything from my father,” I say hoarsely. “I couldn’t read him at all. Marcus, I failed.”
He takes my hand in his and brings it up to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to my knuckles. “None of that matters right now. All that matters is that you’re free from him. You’re safe with me.”
“Can we go back to the cottage before going home?” Because it isourhome, not just mine.
“Of course, sweet-tart.”
I don’t recoil at the term of endearment now that our fight has passed. Now it brings me the comfort I so desperately need.
We make our way into the cottage, passing through Ian’s expert wards, and Marcus immediately bundles me up in the nesting materials I left here for moments like these.
“I thought you hated this place after what Rad did to it.”
“I didn’t hate that it was ours,” I reply, my voice still watery with tears.
“Stay put,” he says, going to the kitchen cupboards and rummaging around in them. Finally, he brandishes two cupsof spicy instant ramen he must have found at the very back of the cabinet. “You barely ate lunch.”
I give him a dull nod, tears welling at the corners of my eyes again.
In the absence of my kettle, Marcus heats water for the ramen with a transmutation circle and lets the noodles steep until they’re soft and the broth steaming. I watch as he shoots off a text, no doubt telling my pack I’m safe with him.
