Chapter 7
Callum
Idrop into the seat opposite the man determined to destroy my life. “What do you want?”
My dad, having taken a seat seconds earlier, folds his hands. “What I want is for you to do what I want, Callum, and life won’t be so hard. Be difficult, and I will make your life difficult.”
“Where’s Lottie?” I ask him tightly. “You promised us one meeting a week. It’s been three weeks.”
He smirks. “Are you choosing Lottie over the beautiful Juniper?”
I open my mouth, ready to say yes. That I want nothing to do with any woman he throws at me. But I can’t. That would be a lie, and I can’t risk him catching me in a lie.
Not about this.
I don’t know how it happened, whether he pointed his finger at a random woman at the Haven Academy end-of-year ball and his finger landed on our scent match, or if he saw something that night. But the odds are...
Astronomical.
But it did happen, and it’s left me—left all of us—in an impossible position.
He drags his finger through the pale yellow, almost translucent glaze on the cake in the center of the table.
Dark purple blueberries peek through the top layer and on the sides.
It looks delicious, so I’m not surprised when he licks his finger and makes an appreciative sound.
I hide my disgust, but it’s a near thing.
“The girl knows how to bake,” he says, dabbing his mouth with a white napkin and tossing it back on the tablecloth. “If you ever want to throw her away, I’ll take her.”
It’s only my control and fear of what he will do to Lottie as punishment that keeps me from driving my fist into his face.
Control that I’ve been fighting to maintain since I was a boy.
Control I’ve had ever since he pushed my mother down the stairs, breaking her neck, and got away with it by claiming it was an accident.
“Why her?” I ask.
Even saying her name is agony. I can’t do it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“She’s a sweet girl,” he says, smirking as he leans back in his white wooden garden chair.
“A pawn,” I say, putting together the pieces. “Veronica has been slacking, so you needed another set of eyes on us.”
Someone we might spill a secret or two after sex that he could use to control us.
“She seems fond of you,” he says coyly.
He hasn’t brought up scent matches yet, and I start to ask but his expression makes me swallow my words. He’s turned people that we trusted against us. Scent matches are rare. Biology and the universe coming together to create the perfect pairings.
Special.
Pure.
Until now.
Now he’s sucked a woman into his web, the one woman in the world I couldn’t destroy even if I wanted to.
My scent match.
“Well, I’m not fond of her,” I lie.
He gives me a long, considering look. He’s trying to read me, but the mask I learned to protect myself is too good now. I’m twenty-five. I’ve been working on this mask since I was nine years old.
When the corners of his eyes pull and his lips flatten slightly, I know he failed to read me.
He pushes his chair back and gets to his feet. “Well, if she ever bores you, say the word. I wouldn’t mind her spending the night in my bed. Toss her out, I’ll scoop her up, and I’ll give her everything she needs.”
It’s a threat and a warning.
He put her into our lives to watch us and to ensure good behavior. Maybe he knows she’s our scent match. Yes, he would know. She would have told him. His pawns tell him everything.
And he would have heard what happened at the mate-bonding ceremony when we were ready to go to war for her. Either way, he knows we’re not about to let her go. And especially not now we’ve bitten her and claimed her as ours.
If we toss her into the street, he’ll fuck her.
Our omega.
Knowing my dad, he’ll send photos and even a home video to rub it in our faces to prove he had.
He walks toward Archer, whistling happily with both hands in his pockets.
Archer clenches his hands into tight fists, his expression blank. I’ve seen the same look on his face before. I know what it means.
Trouble.
Dad nearly destroyed him before I intervened with a promise to keep secrets that would put him in jail for the rest of his life. I catch Archer’s eye and shake my head. He isn’t worth it. Archer’s lips flatten, and he steps aside.
My dad chuckles as he pulls one hand from his pocket and opens the door into the house. “If you ever decide you want to switch sides…”
“Not happening,” Archer grates out, which only makes my dad laugh as he enters the house.
“Your loss,” he calls out.
“Lottie!” I shout after him.
My dad peers over his shoulder to say, “Next week. Thirty minutes. I won’t tell you what will happen if you try to free her from our arrangement.”
He leaves one word unsaid. Again. We tried it before, and now we have another live-in spy to deal with.
A spy we nearly took to our beds, and would have been none the wiser, if we hadn’t woken up earlier than usual to surprise our scent match with breakfast in bed, only to find her happily chatting away with the enemy.
It was a betrayal none of us had seen coming.
With rage simmering in my veins, I watch my dad long past the point I’ve lost sight of him. Until I hear the faint sound of an engine starting. A sign he’s actually leaving. Only then do I turn back to look at the cake on the table.
None of us eats in the backyard anymore. The first and only time was when we discovered Veronica eavesdropping from the dining-room window.
So, of course, this is where Juniper Harrington would want us to eat our first meal together.
My gaze lands on the cake in the center of a table set for four.
It looks perfectly innocent. Just like Juniper. But inside, it’s poison.
With one hard yank of the white tablecloth, I send the cake, along with the plates, coffee, and mugs, spilling onto the grass.
Someone is watching me.
I track the sensation of being watched upward.
My gaze lands on the woman standing at an upstairs window.
Long, wavy blonde hair frames her beautiful face.
I meet her big brown eyes for two beats, then I pull my gaze from hers and get up from the table.
And I walk inside, not giving her another thought.
Torin shuts the office door behind him, the last one to enter after Archer and me.
With a desk, chair, and two leather chairs facing it, there are two bookcases and not much else in the room. My dad's interior designer decorated it, like most of the house, to fit his wants and needs, so we don't use it often. This house is nothing more than a cage he uses to hold us.
The only room we took the time to decorate was our scent match’s nest. We wanted to surprise her with something special to welcome her into our lives, spending hours choosing the softest cashmere cushions and silks to make it cozy. What a waste of time.
Torin is holding a glass of whiskey. It’s eight in the morning.
I raise my eyebrow. “Really?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t. Yesterday was like a dream. Today it’s a fucking nightmare. I need a drink.”
Archer makes a sound of agreement from where he’s leaning against the wall beside the one window in the room, eyes pointed outward.
Veronica will be out there cleaning the mess I made on the grass. I regret not being there to enjoy the view. But at least while she’s out there cleaning, she can’t be near us, eavesdropping.
“She seemed confused when I confronted her.” Torin takes a sip from his glass, makes a face, and sets it down on the desk. I don’t know how much of that he’s had, but clearly, he’s reached a point where it’s no longer helping to make a terrible morning any better.
He slumps into one of the white leather desk chairs as I ask him, “Do you want to risk Lottie’s life on the possibility that the whore my dad picked out for us is a better actress than we were expecting?”
“Are you sure she’s not an innocent caught up in this?” Archer asks quietly, pulling his gaze from the backyard to reveal a furrowed brow.
It’s no surprise he’s the one asking the question. He wants her to be like him. Just someone caught up in this mess.
“What do you think?” I ask him.
The bleakness in his gaze fades as bitterness chases away his doubt. “There are no innocent spies. If they are, they don’t stay innocent for long.”
“My dad makes sure of that,” I mutter more to myself than to him. I turn to Torin. “What did she say?”
Getting to his feet, he wanders over to the window beside Archer. I can’t blame him. All I keep doing is standing up, pacing, and sitting down again.
Nothing has gone the way it should have with our scent match. Not one thing.
After peering out of the window for a second, Torin turns to look at me. “She didn’t deny having spoken to him at the ball. And we all saw how much fun they were having in the garden.”
“Where is she now?” I ask him.
“Upstairs. I waited near the stairs to make sure she stayed up there.” Torin shakes his head, lips twisting. “If we hadn’t come down early, we would have missed it.”
“She was a virgin,” I say, voicing a thought none of us have brought up yet when we must all be thinking it. I don’t know why a part of me keeps wanting to believe this isn’t a trap we all know it is.
“It isn’t like whores don’t sell off their virginity to the highest bidder,” Torin says. “It was a trap. You know it, and I know it. The less we have her in our lives and our beds, the better.”
“Your dad wants her,” Archer says, and I wish he hadn’t.
I keep trying not to think about it, but my thoughts keep swinging that way anyway.
Torin is back to peering out of the window.
Archer stares at the floor.
I bounce my gaze between them. “Part of me thinks we should give her to him.”
But she’s ours.
I don’t trust her, but biology is a fucking bitch. It has tied us together, and even if we threw her out, Dad would have paid her good money to stay. Too much money to walk away. She’s going nowhere.
“Choose, or I will choose for you.”
His threat drove us to the Haven Academy end-of-year ball, a place none of us had wanted to go. We didn’t choose fast enough, so he did what he threatened he would.
He chose for us, and we were all too blind to see it until after we’d tied ourselves to her.
Our scent match is a threat I can’t get rid of because I’d die rather than see my father have her.
“She’s the enemy,” I say, catching Torin’s eye and then Archer's. “None of us can ever forget that.”