Chapter 25
June
Afloral arrangement big enough to adorn the front of a Thanksgiving Parade stops me dead.
It’s creating a stir among my neighbors, who have gathered in front of it, whispering about how much it must have cost and whether there’s a street party or parade they didn’t hear about.
Me? I’m bone tired.
Sleep last night was nonexistent, but I dragged myself out of my bed, pulled on my uniform, and went to work. For the last eight hours, I’ve been daydreaming about crawling under my sheets, pulling said sheet over my head, and going to sleep.
Now this.
They know where I live, convinced someone to let them into the building, and they left this… this monstrosity in the entrance in some misguided attempt to win me over.
Never gonna happen.
“June?”
I whip my head toward the familiar voice, my gaze clashing with Gia’s tired hazel eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, wincing at my rudeness. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was chasing you away or anything.”
She returns my smile, and it’s as tired as I feel. “August is sick. I had to take him to the clinic for a checkup.”
At ten years old, he’s her youngest. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve stepped around him or laughingly tried to join in when I’ve come home from work to find him kicking a ball down the street with the other neighborhood kids.
I can’t imagine how she must feel. A sick kid means she can’t work one of the two jobs she needs every paycheck for.
“Is he okay?” I try to remember what I have in my apartment. “I can bring him some soup. I think I have some chicken noodle.”
“Keep your soup, but thanks.” She smiles gratefully at me. “It’s just a bug going around his school. He’ll be fine.”
“There’s a card.” Randall, a school janitor who lives on the third floor, calls out, drawing my gaze back to the monstrosity taking up half of the first floor entrance.
“Who’s it for?” Ivy, a nurse on the second floor, asks.
I bet I can guess.
“June.” Randall offers me the small white card with my name scrawled on the front in a strong, masculine hand.
With a tired sigh, I take the envelope he passes me, tearing it open to read the small card I pull out.
We have a lot to apologize for, Juniper. We didn’t mean to scare you. Please call. It’s important.
Callum
I don’t even look at the phone number at the bottom before I rip the card in half and toss it in the trash. Then I turn to Gia, telling her, “The flowers are yours. I don’t want them.”
Tired and fed up, I walk up the stairs to get some much-needed sleep.
The next morning, I push open the front door of my apartment building, halting before I can take one step outside.
It’s early. Not even six yet and a familiar dark-haired man is sitting on the top step, his back to me, with a bouquet of beautiful blood-red roses beside him.
I turn around to leave through the back door. It means passing by the stinky dumpsters, but anything has to be better than a conversation with Torin.
“Please don’t run away, June,” he says before I can make a quiet escape.
My lips flatten and I abandon sneaking out through the back to avoid him. “Don’t call me that.”
Torin turns around to look at me. He’s not smiling. His green eyes are tired, and his clothes are creased. Definitely slept in. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness for how I treated you; I know that. But there’s something important I need to tell you.”
Seeing him hurts.
Not just my heart. My soul. Every part of my body screams, and I wish it wouldn’t, because this man hurt me so badly, I wish I could forget he exists.
But I can’t.
I was watching a medical drama on TV in the hospital, and a doctor said that sometimes a patient who had a leg cut off still feels it.
He’ll reach down to scratch the itch, but the leg is gone.
There’s nothing to scratch. I broke the bond between us, but it still feels like something is there, hurting me, making me miss him.
“I gave that floral arrangement to my neighbor,” I tell him, needing him to know flowers aren’t good enough. Not the floral arrangement from before, and not the roses he brought with him this morning.
“You deserve more than a floral arrangement, Juniper. It’s hard to know how to apologize—or make right—something unforgivable.”
His quiet, intense words surprise me.
“Then why are you here with more flowers?”
“Hope.” He pushes himself to his feet and turns fully to face me. “Hope there’s still a chance to make a broken thing whole.” His eyes sharpen on me as I step out of the doorway. “You look tired.”
“Yes, well, witnessing you drag my date out of a coffee shop and pummel him in the face left me with a nightmare or two,” I tell him bitterly.
“You can’t trust him, Juniper.”
I bark out a laugh and let the door slam shut behind me. “Of course, this is how you’re going to play this. You’re here to swoop in and rescue me, and there’s no one I can trust more than you. Sound about right?”
“Juniper…” He tries to hand me the flowers as I move past him.
“I don’t want them,” I say, skirting around him and jogging down the stairs. “And I don’t want you.”
“An apology isn’t enough,” he calls after me.
Stopping, I twist around, yanking at the strap of my canvas bag when it slips down. He’s still holding the roses, and his eyes dip to linger on my maid’s uniform. An expression passes across his face too fast to read. It looks like pain—or maybe anguish.
“So, what are you doing here then?” I demand.
“You can’t trust the man from the coffee shop, Juniper.”
My lips flatten. Jealousy. That’s what this is.
He’s not here to apologize for hurting me.
He found out I’d moved on, and he’s determined to claim me like the dog down the street that goes crazy if any other dog pees on the fire hydrant it claimed as his.
That’s all I am to Torin, Callum, and Archer: just a thing to be claimed.
Shaking my head, I turn to leave. “I’ve moved on, Torin. You should do the same.”
“He was my best friend.”
“You’re lying,” I say, walking away.
“Wilkes Booth,” he calls out. “I don’t know what name he gave you, but Wilkes Booth is his real name, and we went to school together. Call him that to his face and watch his reaction. He’s up to something. Don’t trust him.”
I turn around, the ring of truth in his voice making anger spike in my belly. “You’re jealous.”
His gaze dips to the roses he’s still holding.
The old Juniper would have loved for a guy to buy her flowers and take her to dinner and do all the sweet romantic things I spent most of my childhood wishing for.
This Juniper knows better than to think roses or even an apology can fix anything.
My gaze lands on Torin’s bruised knuckles, the source of most of my nightmares last night.
I went into shock when he burst into the coffee shop as Oscar was asking what I wanted to drink. Then Torin was there, dragging Oscar into the street and punching him in the face. I did the one thing I told myself I would absolutely not do.
I ran.
And in that moment, I hated myself. Hated that this is what I’ve been reduced to. That everything good in my life is gone. That I don’t know where my little sister is, and nothing will convince my parents to open the front gate and let me in, or even tell me if my sister is alive and breathing.
I tell myself that I’m happy in this new life I’ve created for myself, and some parts of it aren’t as terrible as they were before. Mostly the friends I’ve made. But the rest?
The rest of the time I am not happy. I’m afraid and I’m tired and I’m so damn lonely. And always, at the back of my mind, I’m haunted by the certainty that one day soon, I will need an alpha to get me through my next heat.
I wish I didn’t need anyone.
But I do.
An omega will always need an alpha, and I hate that a part of me still wants and needs the one standing in front of me.
“I wish it were just jealousy. It’s not.
” Torin lifts his head. His expression is so serious that it scares me.
“My mother used him to destroy the only good thing I had in my life, and if he’s here, it’s because of her.
You can’t trust him, Juniper. If you don’t want to believe that I’m sorry for the way I treated you, please, please believe that man is a threat to you. You cannot trust him.”
My pulse leaps, and hot, terrified blood pumps through my veins. I force my heartbeat to slow and not let fear make me do something I will regret. Something stupid like trusting the man standing in front of me.
My fingers tighten around the strap of my canvas bag, and my plastic container, which holds the salad I made for my lunch, bumps my thigh. “The worst day of my life was when I met you. If I could go back in time, I never would have walked into that library at the end-of-year ball.”
He flinches. It’s not a big movement, and I only notice it because he's so still. His expression doesn’t change, but I know I hurt him.
Good.
I hope I hurt him as much as he hurt me.
“There is no coming back from what you did.” I lift my chin to look him in the eye, and I tell him exactly what I said I would in my tiny bathroom, the place I go to find strength in a world that scares me. “Don’t come back here. I never want to see you again.”
And I turn around, hurrying to the bus stop before I’m late for work.
Callum is waiting for me at the bottom of my apartment building. Torin must have told him not to bother with flowers, because he has both hands buried in his pockets.
He opens his mouth.
“No,” I tell him firmly, skirting a wide berth around him. “Whatever you came here to say, whether it’s an apology or threat or warning you’re here to deliver, I don’t want to hear it. Go. Away.”
And I jog up the stairs and into my apartment building, pulling the door shut behind me so he can’t follow me inside.
Scowling and muttering curses all the way up the four flights of stairs to my apartment, I’m ready to scream when my phone vibrates as I unlock my front door.
They probably found out my number if they figured out where I live. It’s probably Archer since he hasn’t appeared at my apartment yet.
I yank my phone out of my bag and stab my finger on the answer button without looking.
“What!”
It’s so beyond rude that Mom would have had a fit if she heard the way I just answered the phone.
My teachers at Haven Academy, the finishing school for omegas, would have held me back a year because clearly I was more rough than smooth around the edges.
Definitely not fit for polite society. My dad would have shaken his head and gone out to play golf, leaving Mom to be outraged on his behalf.
And River? My little sister, whom I have missed every single day, would have covered her mouth to hide her smile. She would have secretly wished to step out of line without someone waiting to shove us back into the role of the quiet, obedient omega we were trained to be for almost all of our lives.
The old Juniper would have cared. This Juniper does not care.
I was late to work, and it cost me an hour of pay I can’t afford to lose, and it was all because of the stupid alpha sitting on the top step outside my apartment, trying to convince me of something that isn’t true.
“Sorry, is this a bad time?”
My anger deflates at the unexpected male voice.
“Oscar?”
Torin’s warning makes my back tense instinctively.
Wilkes Booth.
Torin is jealous. He was lying. You cannot believe him.
“I can call back another time if you prefer,” he says.
I shut my front door and lock it. Then I step out of my sneakers and pick up my bag from the floor where I dropped it, my phone tucked against my ear. “No. I was going to call you about the thing at the coffee shop.”
But I didn’t know what to say. And clearly, Torin’s ominous words have already started to infect my brain. I remind myself that Torin is jealous and will say anything to turn me against Oscar. Maybe I can’t trust Oscar, but I sure as hell can’t trust Torin.
“Yeah, that was a bit of excitement I didn’t need. Are you okay?”
I pause on my way to the refrigerator. “Me?”
“Yes, you disappeared.”
I wince.
I ran away while my former mate was beating up my date. I felt bad about it before. Oscar reminding me of it is making my cheeks burn with shame all over again. “Um, it was overwhelming.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me. I’m glad you weren’t caught up in what must’ve been a case of mistaken identity.”
“Mistaken identity,” I echo.
“I didn’t know the guy. Did you?”
I stare at my refrigerator, unsure how to answer that question. The truth, June. You wouldn’t like it if he lied to you. Maybe don’t lie to him. “He was an ex.”
“Ah, an ex who wants you back and isn’t happy you’ve moved on?”
My tension levels decrease substantially, and I smile as I loosen my tight grip on my phone. “Yeah. It was exactly like that. I’m sorry you got punched in the face.”
“It wasn’t your fault. I have a good doctor, so my broken nose is healing fast.”
I wince.
He continues in the same calm, unaffected tone. “That’s why I held off on calling. My assistant told me I sounded like a chipmunk on the phone, so…”
He surprises a laugh out of me. “I’m sure you didn’t sound like a chipmunk.”
“I did.” He chuckles. “Anyway, now that I no longer sound like a chipmunk, I wanted to call and find out if you were okay, and…”
“And…?” I prompt when he tails off.
“To make things up to you. How about we try again?”
I bite my lip, torn with indecision.
“You’re allowed to say no,” he says, sensing my hesitation. His voice is warm with amusement when he adds, “Our first date went so spectacularly badly, I won’t blame you if you wanted to run.”
Despite myself, my lips twitch into a brief smile. “It was a pretty surreal moment.”
“How about dinner? I know a great restaurant. Spanish tapas. Lots of tiny little plates. We’ll order more than we can eat, try out a bunch of food, talk about the worst first date in history, and I’ll call you a cab.
Just a good meal and conversation. And this place is reservation-only, so no drama. What do you say?”
I say it’s exactly what I need.
My mind flashes back to Torin’s threat. He doesn’t want me. Only when Garrison tried to take me away did he try to stop me from leaving. He’s jealous, that’s all this is.
“What time?” I ask Oscar.