I make sure I look him in the eyes while I wait for his answer.
“I wanted to ask about staying here at the academy,” he admits, after a slight pause.
“Um, you want to stay here?”
I can feel my cheeks warming as I think about the implications of his request.
“It’s better for true mates to stay close once they find each other,” he goes on, giving me a wry smile. “We have a suite in a hotel in the city. It’s not far from the academy, but if we’re off site then we need to schedule visits every day to get the chance to spend time with you.”
“Oh!” I gasp, as it sinks in how serious all of this is.
He’s not talking about dating me, visiting when he feels like it to spend time together.
He’s talking about wanting to spend all his free time here!
“Well … I … Don’t you have to work, or something?” I blurt, once I’ve pulled myself together enough to ask.
He smiles. “I’m on hiatus from working. Alphas are pretty good at making money and saving it. Shayne is in the same position right now. It made coming out to the city to be near you a simple decision.”
“Um, well, I have a job here.”
“I know. We can visit whenever it’s good for you.”
“So, Lana said no to you staying here?”
“She wasn’t in a good mood when we spoke. I realized it wasn’t the right time to ask. If I’d thought she would agree to it, I would have asked if we could rent a room here in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, she’s still not very happy with me right now, so I don’t think that’s going to be an option.”
“She doesn’t seem to like you very much.”
“I don’t blame her for looking out for you. It’s good that she cares.”
“She’s been so nice to me. Even when I didn’t know these people were helping me, and I tried to escape, she helped me understand the truth.”
“The truth?” he asks, frowning.
I look down as I process everything I’ve been through since I got to the academy.
Finding out my life had been a lie wasn’t easy, but Lana made it easier to get through, for sure.
“I was young when my mother died. Too young to remember anything. The truth is, I saw that house as my home. I didn’t know … I had no idea my mom was sold to Ivan Hamilton because she was an Omega. I wasn’t aware of how close I was to death when you got me out of there and brought me here. I didn’t know that was a rescue. If I’m honest, it felt like a kidnapping, at the time.”
He's blinking at me in astonishment when I look back up into those deep-set gray eyes.
“A kidnapping?” he whispers.
I nod. “It sounds awful, I know, but it’s the truth.”
He stares at me, his shock slowly turning to horror.
I give him a minute to process what I told him, and then it feels like it’s time to move on.
“Are you still hungry, or …” I start, trailing off when I realize it might be too much for him to take in.
The girl he thinks he rescued isn’t someone who was instantly grateful for what he did.
She was confused and kind of hurt by it, at first, before she understood her whole world had been upside down from the very beginning.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” He takes my hands in his, before lowering his head to kiss them.
