We eat in silence at the kitchen table, my tears starting to dry.
I don’t know how he always knows what I need, but Marcus has always taken such good care of me. I feel the ice in my heart thawing. As furious as I was about his lies, he’s remained steadfast in his care for me. Steadfast and tender. When we finish lunch, he makes up the couch with a proper nest for me, building it up slowly and methodically, trying to make it the same way he’s seen me do it dozens of times before. He layers my nesting materials together carefully, finishing with my favorite silky blanket.
When he stands back, I crawl into the makeshift nest and reach out to him, needing the heat of his body beneath mine, his soothing scent around me. “Will you join me in my nest?” I ask, suddenly shy.
His expression falters to disbelief for a moment, but then he offers me his biggest smile. “I would love to,” he says quietly before gingerly climbing into my nest of blankets, taking care not to disturb any of them. I collapse into his arms, the tension going out of me.
He wraps his arms around me, nestling me against his body, holding me so sweetly, so reverently. Like I’m his greatest treasure. With my head on his shoulder, I can breathe in as much of his soothing scent as I need, and I draw it in greedy lungfuls. He nuzzles my temple, making everything in my head go quiet, pushing out my father’s snidevoice. In his arms, my instincts quiet, and I no longer feel like the sad, feeble creature my father crafted me into with his cruel words.
As he holds me close, his purr kicks up in his chest, a low reverberating rumble that draws me into the bottomless ocean of his love for me. Saints, Marcus ispurringfor me. The sound and sensation lull me, and I curl into him. His arms go tight around me, and for the first time since lunch, I feel truly safe. In my alpha’s arms. Because that’s what Marcus is to me, isn’t it? He’s my alpha, and he’s held a piece of my heart in his hands since the day we met.
As the sun begins to set, he presses a lingering kiss to my forehead, banishing the darkness within me, replacing it with pure sunshine.
We return hometo the smells of basil, oregano, and slow-simmered tomatoes, just as Cassian and Simon are unboxing Italian takeout.
“Pack dinner?” I ask. In truth, most of our dinners are pack dinners, but I know my pack will want to hear about my lunch with my father.
Simon comes up and kisses my cheek. “You okay, kit-kat?”
I look up into his hazel eyes and nod, gracing him with a small smile. “I am now.”
He must scent Marcus all over me, because he grins and takes me into his arms. “I’m glad.”
We sit down to dinner, and Cassian is the first to ask about my lunch with my father. “What did he want?”
“To cut me down. It was brutal, and he was cruel. As expected. He taunted me about what he made me see at the Lunar Ball, all but promising me it’d all come true.” I’mdrawn back to dark thoughts of IV tubes in arms, familiar sigils, a scalpel, a scribe. Blood running down a tattooed omega’s back.
“You have all summer before you have to see him again,” Luca promises, taking my hand beneath the table.
I look up to Ian, who’s seated across from me. “I failed. I couldn’t read him. It was like there was a barrier in his mind.”
“You didn’t fail, my darling. You merely encountered an obstacle,” he says. “There has to be a way around it. He can’t be using any sort of magic for it, but I would hypothesize that some people are better able to lock down their thoughts than others.”
“Like Marcus.”
He looks up sharply. “Really? You can’t read me? Not at all?”
“I’ve only gotten flashes of emotion a few times from you,” I admit. “Not that I try to make a habit of reading any of you.”
“That’s curious,” Ian muses. “Perhaps Marcus can help with your training if he’s similarly hard to read as your father.”
“Of course,” Marcus says. “Happy to help.”
“We have all summer to work on it,” Ian says, the softness in his voice offering comfort.
Our talk turns to the summer that stretches ahead of us. I have to make the most of it. When autumn comes, we won’t be together all the time like this anymore. I’ll be starting my junior year and Luca his senior year, but it’ll just be the two of us on campus now. Cassian and Simon are graduating in a few days, and while I’m going to miss seeing them on campus, I’m too proud of them to dwell on it for long. Cassian will start his courses at Saint Galen’s Consortium, studying law, leaving Simon home alone tokeep up the good fight with his hacking and search for the collars.
“Won’t you be lonely?” I ask him. I hate the thought of leaving him in the pack house all alone.
He shakes his head. “Honestly, the peace and quiet may help me. Not that I don’t love having the whole pack around, but the focus will be good for me—and for my search.”
“If you’re sure.”
He smiles. “I am. And I’ll be the one to welcome you home every night.”
“I’ll look forward to it every day,” I promise him.
While Simon will be home hacking, Ian will continue to work with the omegas, as will I when time allows. I’m hoping to read ahead in my junior-year classes over the summer to be prepared, giving me more time to work on their affinities with them. No doubt they’ll be casting as complex magic as I can by the time summer is over. Ian has taught them well, just as I knew he would.
