Chapter 42 Vespera
forty-two
Vespera
The call came during Advanced Movement class.
"Ms. Levine, you're needed in the administrative office."
I looked up from the floor stretch I'd been holding, my muscles protesting the interruption. De Scarzis raised an eyebrow but nodded permission. The showcase was six days away, and we'd been running full rehearsals every day, but apparently something was more important.
Campus security didn't pull you out of class unless it was serious.
My heart kicked into overdrive as I grabbed my bag and hurried across campus. Had something happened to Dad? To Robbie? Was this about the pack? Had Dorian's parents finally made good on their threats?
The bond hummed in my chest—sandalwood tinged with concern. Dorian had felt my spike of anxiety from wherever he was. I sent back a pulse of I'm fine, I'll text you and kept walking.
The administrative building loomed ahead, all gothic stonework and stained glass. I'd been here exactly once, during orientation freshman year. Now I was climbing the steps with my stomach in knots, wondering what crisis had found me now.
The receptionist looked up when I entered. "Ms. Levine? Your father is waiting in Conference Room B. Down the hall, second door on the left."
My father.
Relief and confusion hit simultaneously. He was alive. But what was he doing here?
I found him standing by the window, looking out at the quad. He'd aged since I'd last seen him in person—more gray in his hair, deeper lines around his eyes. He still wore his usual uniform of jeans and a tech crew t-shirt, looking completely out of place in this expensive institution.
"Dad?"
He turned, and his expression crumpled slightly. "Vespera. God, look at you."
The hug was awkward. We'd never been physically affectionate, and the last few months had strained our relationship to breaking. But his arms around me felt safe in a way I'd forgotten I needed.
"What's wrong?" I asked when we pulled apart. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Nothing's wrong. I just..." He ran a hand through his graying hair. "I needed to see you. Talk to you. Can we walk?"
Autumn had painted Northwood in gold and crimson. We walked the paths I'd learned over the past weeks, past students who stared at us—the scholarship Omega and her working-class father, so obviously not belonging in this world of old money and legacy admissions.
Small talk felt forced. How are your classes. Fine, Dad. The showcase is next week. I know, I'll be there. How's work. Busy. The new season starts in November.
We weren't saying anything real. Dancing around whatever had brought him four hours north to campus on a Tuesday afternoon.
"The Alphas treating you well?" he asked finally.
I paused mid-step. We'd barely talked about the pack since I'd moved in. He knew about the claiming—hard to hide three permanent bite marks on my throat—but we'd avoided discussing the details. The fact that I was living with them. Sleeping with them. Trying to build something that wasn't biology.
"We're figuring it out," I said carefully.
"That's not a yes."
"It's not a no either." I kept walking. "They're trying, Dad. Really trying. Dorian especially. He's—" I broke off. How did you explain your bully-turned-lover to your father? "It's complicated."
"Love usually is."
The word hung between us. Love. Was that what this was? I'd said it to Dorian during heat, meant it even, but saying it out loud in the daylight felt different. More real. More terrifying.
"I wouldn't call it love," I deflected. "More like... complicated attachment with potential for growth."
Dad's mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "That's the most Vespera definition of a relationship I've ever heard."
"I'm practical."
"You're scared."
Direct hit. I stopped walking, turning to face him. "Of course I'm scared. I'm nineteen, bonded to three Alphas I barely trust, trying to hold onto my dreams while biology tries to make me someone else. Who wouldn't be scared?"
He was quiet for a stretch. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope.
Cream-colored. Expensive paper. My name written in handwriting I hadn't seen in nine years.
My world tilted.
"Your mother left this," Dad said quietly. "For you."
My hand shook as I took it. The envelope was sealed, the paper soft with age. She'd written this years ago. Left it the day before she walked out.
"You've had this for nine years?" My voice came out strangled.
"She made me promise to wait. Until you presented and were old enough to understand.
" His pain was visible in every line of his face.
"I didn't know when the right time was. You presented at fourteen, but you were still a child.
Then you were seventeen, eighteen, and it never felt right.
And then with everything happening—the claiming, the pack—it felt like now. Like you needed to know."
"I presented at fourteen. I'm nineteen now. How much older did I need to be?"
"I know. I'm sorry. I just—" He looked away. "I wanted to protect you from her one more time."
The envelope burned in my hands. Heavy with words I'd waited nine years to read. Answers to questions I'd stopped asking because they hurt too much.
"I need to read this alone," I said.
"Of course." He squeezed my shoulder. "I'll wait in my car. Take all the time you need."
I didn't go to my room at the pack house. Didn't want the Alphas hovering, asking questions, feeling my emotional spiral through the bonds. Instead, I went to the one place on campus that was truly mine—the small rehearsal studio I'd claimed for solo practice.
Empty. Private. Me and my mother's words.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, still in my dance clothes, and stared at the envelope. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. The paper felt too heavy. Too final. Like Schrodinger's cat—as long as I didn't open it, my mother could be anything. Victim. Martyr. Someone who loved me.
But I knew better.
The envelope had been sealed for nine years. Whatever was inside had been true then and would still be true now. No amount of stalling would change it.
I broke the seal. The sound of tearing paper echoed in the empty studio.
The handwriting hit me first. Elegant. Careful. My mother's hand—I'd almost forgotten what it looked like. She'd left when I was ten. I had maybe three birthday cards saved in a box somewhere, remnants of a person I barely remembered.
I started reading.
Made it through the first paragraph before I had to stop. Put the letter down. Press my palms to the floor. Breathe.
I'm running away like the coward I am.
My chest was too tight. I picked up the letter again. Kept reading.
I disappeared into being his mate, his Omega, the mother of his child. And I watched myself vanish.
The letter slipped from my fingers. I couldn't—I couldn't breathe. My vision was blurring at the edges and my hands were numb and I couldn't get enough air.
She left because of the bond. Because she felt herself disappearing. Because she chose survival over staying.
I'd spent nine years thinking maybe she'd loved someone else. Maybe she'd been forced to leave. Maybe she'd had no choice.
She'd had a choice.
She chose herself over me.
I made it through the rest of the letter in pieces. Reading a few lines, then stopping when the words got too sharp. When they cut too close to my own fear.
My darling Vespera,
If you're reading this, you've presented as Omega. I knew you would. I could see it in you even when you were small—that magnetic quality, the way people were drawn to you. The thing that would make you valuable. Vulnerable.
I'm writing this the day before I leave. You're ten years old, asleep upstairs, and I'm running away like the coward I am.
I can't watch it happen to you. I can't stay and see what I know is coming.
Your father will tell you I left because I didn't love you enough. Maybe that's true. Maybe a better mother would have stayed and fought. But I'm not a better mother. I'm an Omega who chose herself.
When I bonded with your father, I thought it was love. Maybe it was, at first. But love and biology blur together until you can't tell the difference between what you want and what your body demands. I disappeared into being his mate, his Omega, the mother of his child.
And I watched myself vanish.
Not all at once. Small surrenders. Little compromises. Each one made sense in the moment—for pack harmony, for family, for love. But they added up until I looked in the mirror one day and didn't recognize myself.
I see the same fire in you that I had once. The talent. The dreams. The stubborn belief that you can be more than your designation.
And I can't watch the world take that from you the way it took it from me.
So I'm running. I'm choosing freedom over my daughter. I'm choosing myself over the little girl who needs her mother.
That makes me selfish. Weak. The worst kind of coward.
But I'd rather be a coward who survived than a martyr who stayed and lost herself completely.
If you present—when you present—the world will try to make you smaller. Quieter. More manageable. Alphas will see you as property. Biology will try to override your choices. Everyone will tell you this is natural, right, meant to be.
Don't believe them.
Or do. That's your choice to make. Not mine. I gave up the right to influence your choices when I walked out that door.
I'm not writing this to be forgiven. I don't deserve forgiveness. I'm writing this because you deserve to know the truth: your mother was too weak to fight for you. Too broken to stay. Too selfish to choose anyone but herself.
Don't be like me. Be stronger. Be braver. Or be weak like I was and run.
Just don't expect me to be there either way. I won't be. I'm gone, and I'm not coming back.
I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to be your mother. I'm not sorry I chose to save myself.
That's the truth. The ugly, honest truth.
Goodbye, Vespera.
The letter fell from my hands.