I’ve never seen Bitsy like this, so cowed. Her default modes are snarky and angry, but now… now she’s fearful and distraught in ways I can’t even imagine.
“You can’t mate some assholes!” Ellie exclaims.
Bitsy ducks her head and shrugs her shoulders. “Whatchoice do I have? I’ve spent my years here dicking around while I could have been looking for mates. My time’s up.”
Ellie slides her chair back, the feet scraping on the stone floor. “Hell with this,” she mutters. “I thought you’d fight harder.”
Bitsy looks up sharply. “What’s there to fight, Ells? It’s the fuckinglaw.”
“It’s a bullshit law.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s our new reality. All I can do is hope for a miracle now. Or at least kind mates.” She presses her lips together, tears sparkling at the corners of her dark eyes. “Will you at least help me pack?”
Ellie nods stiffly. “I’m going to bitch at you the entire time.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, my bestest Bells.”
Bitsy is gonethe next day, and Ellie is inconsolable. She skips her classes, and when we finally find her in Bitsy’s cottage, it’s clear she’s been sobbing. She won’t even let Simon into the cottage, though that doesn’t stop him from knocking every few minutes as we stare at the closed wooden door.
“She used to spend so much time here,” Alyssa says glumly. “Most omegas are possessive over their spaces, but Bitsy always welcomed Ellie into her cottage.”
Because Bitsy loves Ellie, and Ellie loves Bitsy.
And now the Soldiers have taken that away from them in the most brutal of ways.
Simon and I both sigh and sit on a stone bench within the residences, just in view of Bitsy’s cottage. I lean against him, and he wraps an arm around me, nuzzling against my cheek.
“I don’t know what to do, Junes,” he admits, his voice hoarse.
“All you can do is love her,” I tell him, knowing it’s the only thing I can do, too.
Except that isn’t true, is it?
I’ve vowed to fight the Soldiers and Baphomet’s Prince to my last breath. And it all starts with my father. I have to be brave—for all omegas.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Miss Rose, I can absolutely give you a special dispensation to return to your classes, but are you sure this is what you want?” Headmaster Langford asks. “You’ve been through something horrific. It would be completely understandable if you wanted to withdraw.”
“Of course she doesn’t want to withdraw,” Sienna protests. “She’s a scholar, and she’s been without a sense of normalcy for weeks.”
“That’s it exactly,” I say, grateful to Sienna for understanding. Because I’ve missed so many weeks of my classes, I need the headmaster’s permission to return to the academy and complete the first term of my junior year. I didn’t anticipate how much leaving home would frighten me. I spent the entire car ride on edge, checking over my shoulder to see if we were being followed. I know Marcus did the same, his eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror often.
Cassian still doesn’t like the idea of me returning to classes, but he understands. Our bond chokes with fear and tension, and he does his best to keep his emotions lockeddown, even though I want to feel everything he feels. He still worries about his parents, and I do, too.
“I’m sure I can catch up on my classes with time and effort,” I assure the headmaster.
“Of that I have no doubt,” Headmaster Langford replies. “Let me at least exempt you from your father’s class. I don’t believe you’re safe under his tutelage, not after everything you’ve told me. He wants your affinity!”
“I can’t graduate without it,” I point out. “Besides, my father is a wealth of information I can tap. I’m uniquely able to do so.”
The headmaster frowns, his mustache twitching. “If you insist on sitting Magical Medicinals, you’ll need protection beyond what a single bodyguard can offer. No offense intended to Mr. Haley.”
“None taken,” Marcus says from where he’s examining the bookshelves in the mansion’s library. “Her protection is paramount.”
“Ian and Cassian have offered to accompany me to my father’s class as an additional layer of protection.”
“You can’t like this, Ian.”
