And Piers, who hasn’t looked at me all afternoon. Not since he came back from comforting Florence and I gave him the news. Made a liar out of him, because he’d just finished promising Ren we weren’t sending her home tonight.
Florence.
Fuck.
I’ve been avoiding thinking too much about her, about how pretty she is when she comes. The sweet sounds that fell from her lips, the flush on her cheeks, and the absolute fucking trust in her eyes when we told her—-whenItold her—I wasn’t going to be able to let her go.
And then this morning, the hurt expression when she came out from her interview with Lulu and found Isadora sitting on my lap like I belonged to her. The half choked whine that made my alpha claw at my insides, demanding I dump Isadora on her ass and go to my fucking omega to make it right.
But I couldn’t, not with my early morning conversation with my grandmother ringing in my ears, the blatant threats she’d laid out. Against Florence. Against Piers.
Two people I would give anything to protect.
Including my happiness.
Including mymate.
My eyes close as I think the word.
Of course the universe is just this cruel. Of course, my pack would find our mate only for us to not be able to keep her.
Instead for her safety, for her future happiness, we have to let her go.
“Your Highness?” a timid voice says from my shoulder. I turn to glare at the freckled redhead I recognize as the PA assigned to Florence. “I have the order for you.”
He sounds worried that I’m going to tear him apart, and I can’t blame him. My entire pack is bristling with pissed off alpha vibes.
I hold out my hand wordlessly, and he slides the tablet into my hand. I scan the list, noticing Florence is at the bottom. Likely to ratchet up the tension. Everyone knows she’s a contender, the fans love her, production loves her, and they love the drama she brings. The battle between love and duty that is currently being waged.
I fucking wish I could let love win.
But I can’t.
“Florence should go first,” I grit out. In the corner of my eye I see Court jerk forward like he wants to argue with me, but he doesn’t. We’ve talked about this, over and over and over. Argued and fought, literally. My cheek still throbs from where Grieves hit me.
But at the end of the day, we’re a pack. Bound by duty—bymyduty—and so they’d agreed.
The PA’s mouth tightens. “They want her-”
“I don’t give a fuck what they want,” I growl at him. “She goes first. Do you hear me? If they want to make it look like she goes last, they can edit the footage later.”
The last thing I want is to draw this out. To have her sitting there full of hope for an hour or more as we go through the motions of accepting or rejecting omegas. She deserves better, and my alpha wouldn’t be able to handle the stress anyway, knowing that her pain is coming. Anxiously waiting for the blade to drop, severing my pack from the omega we’ve all come to care about more than we can ever admit.
And me, the executioner.
The architect of our misery.
The PA nods. “I’ll let them know you said as much. Can’t guarantee they’ll agree.”
It's the best I can ask for.
I’m as much at the whims of the production crew as the omegas are. Even more so, since I have to be polite, since I have to stay in control of my instincts and my frustration at all of this. At all of them.
But more so at myself.
I never should have let it get this far. Never should have let Florence stay for as long as she did, knowing it would hurt this much when I was forced to let her go.
It would have hurt after our first real conversation, after my alpha immediately realized what she was to us, but it wouldn’t have been like this. Not for any of us.
