Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Iris
I stand there, hands around the weakest tea known to man, as both Mari and Violet stand by my sides. Rather, Mari stands and Violet sits.
Heath won’t even look at her and misery and guilt permeates everywhere.
He takes a look and storms out, and then shouting infiltrates the room, too far away for us to make it out, but even as my cheeks burn, skin sensitive and the torn, ugly dress too tight—I know it’s about me.
“I’m sorry, Vi,” I whisper.
“Sorry about what?” Mari grabs my arm and turns me, frowning. “You look…different.”
“I’m me. I’m just—” I stop myself from saying done with this whole charade. “Tired.”
“You’re tired?” Vi laughs and takes my hand in her icy one, a giveaway of her anxiety. She’s so much better but she must be anxious over the baby, over the lies she knows I’m telling, but here’s not much I can do.
This isn’t her fight.
It’s mine.
The less she knows, the better.
And, I remind myself, the core story’s true. They did accost me.
“Or is it something else making you tired,” she asks softly. “Something that’s making you reckless, feverish? If so, you can tell me.”
I can. But I can’t contemplate heat, not that seriously.
“Your scent’s a lot stronger, Iris,” she says.
“Leave it. I’m just tired.”
“You should try carrying a baby.” Violet looks up at me.
“You’re telling the truth, right? You’re not getting yourself in trouble?
After Dad left us broke, I…” She shakes her head.
“Heath’s so pigheaded he won’t let Stephan help, and the amount we’ve managed to give is through Pen helping out. It’s Pen, too, of course, but…”
“It isn’t your place,” I say. “If Stephan helps us, it makes it all worse and we all know it. I didn’t mean…” I swallow. “I don’t want to make it hard on Mari, Dahlia, and Rue. Or on Mom.”
Mari laughs. “She’s had a few drinks with Pen, so it was easy keeping it from her.”
“Tonight,” Violet says. “But even a little thing, even if it’s not your fault, it can bite hard. Let’s just hope someone one else made a mess of things.”
The door opens and Heath growls, “Out.”
Mari hurries out. Violet rises, but she doesn’t leave.
“You, too, Vi,” he says, kindly.
“This is my family, too,” she says. “I’ll stay.”
He pushes out a breath. But he focuses on me. “I spoke to Stephan and he says you want to talk to the Monarch, apologize?”
I nod.
“Good. And, in the meantime, you can say yes to any and all dates.”
“By can, do you mean I have the option of turning them down?”
He stalks up and sticks his face close to mine, and I hug the coat tighter around me. “Don’t test me, Iris.”
Then he studies the coat, runs a finger over the too big shoulders. Thank goodness Xavier took back his coat and this is Stephan’s.
For a moment there’s a softening in his gaze, but he hides it behind his anger and frustration that his plans are going awry.
“If I have to open my friend’s jacket, will I need to kill people?”
My heart surges with love for my brother. “No. They got a beat down.”
“By someone from the Lower Side,” he says. It’s not a condemnation of where Xavier’s from, but I know Heath. He’s trying to work out how it’ll fit in with the narrative, and if it’ll bring scandal. More scandal.
“Shit, Iris.”
“They’re people.”
His eyes narrow dangerously. “Don’t try to tell me I’m prejudiced. I’m not, but I’ve got Mom, Mari, and Rue to think about. And Dahlia, if she doesn’t get a scholarship for school. She’ll need a mate, too.”
I snort. “She doesn’t need a mate.”
“Stop acting like you don’t know everything. I’m as stuck as you are. You think I don’t want to fuck off and have a life? But I’ve got responsibilities. We all have.”
“Is that all?” I ask.
He nods, and I head for the door. “Iris?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry this happened to you. No one deserves that. Guys like Jerome and Donegal need to have their faces pummeled in.”
“There’s a but coming, isn’t there?”
“Just stay away from the Lower Side types. They’re slippery and getting caught up with them is dangerous. Not just for you, but for the family. You have your sisters to think about, too.”
“Believe me. I know.”
When I come down to breakfast, I’m in a simple black dress, one that’s down to my calves. I’m in my least chunky boots and my hair’s soft around my face, courtesy of Mari’s smart fingers.
Mom looks up at me, trying to hide the despair behind a smile and it punches me in the guts.
“Any dates today?” she asks me brightly.
“It’s too early.”
Mom nods and takes a sip of her coffee as Rue keeps her head down as she probably doom scrolls on her phone.
I turned mine off the moment Vi texted to tell me I’ve a meeting with Sophine at ten and to please not be late.
She knows me too well. It is way too tempting.
“Things change,” Mom says, fingers playing with the lacy edge of the morning tablecloth, something we don’t tend to bring out.
Actually, the place is spotless, more so than usual; it shines and gleams and citrus and fresh-cut flowers are redolent in the air.
For a moment I wonder if it’s my sense of smell, if Killian and Xavier awakened the dormant first heat in me early and I’m unfurling like a flower.
Thing is, I’m not as na?ve as Violet, not as innocent as she still is. It doesn’t matter she’s having a baby, she has that air about her of the unsullied, the untouched. That’s something deep inside her.
I’m not that.
I’m aware I’m going to go into heat soon, the soreness and surging sex awakenings, the way that I came when Killian used his fingers on me. I don’t think he’s only potent when a girl’s in heat, but it was the burst of relief that hit, along with all the ecstasy. That gave it away.
But I can handle it. There are drugs, and I know two dangerous men who can help me get them. I don’t want that wild urge to fuck any Alpha who touches me. I want to choose. So I’ll take the drugs, thank you.
The smell of cleaning products, of the flowers? It might be a little more, but it’s also very real. Mom took her anxiety out on the house.
“Mom, I…” I’m not sure what to say. “I’m…I’m going to see the Monarch.”
Rue gasps and lifts her head. “Hottest of hot tea!”
“I got Stephan and Violet to organize it. I don’t…I don’t want to shame our family, add to anything.”
Mom nods, and swallows. “Rue, go outside and play.”
“I’m fifteen, Mom.”
“Well, go be moody outside, then.” The snap in Mom’s voice is enough to send my sister leaping up and racing outside. Then Mom lets out a long sigh. “Sit, Iris.”
I glance at my phone. I’ve got time to get there. I want to be early and Mari’s waiting for me. So I sit.
“I’d ask to come along and would override you if it wasn’t taken the wrong way, me and you going to see the Councilwoman. I wish…”
“I could be more like Violet?”
But Mom laughs. “That’d never happen. You two are ying and yang and I don’t want you doing what Heath did, giving everything up. You do want this, don’t you? To find a mate?”
The word no presses hard, but I push it down and set my phone on the table as I lean in. “Mom,” I say, “I want to help out, too. I want to find the right man for me. The right Alpha. And I’ll do my best to find one this Season. If they’ll have me.”
“Don’t be so spiky, Iris.” But then she smiles. “Or maybe do. Be you and find him. He’s out there, I just know it. We’re still early in the Season and if you seek the Monarch out, she’ll take it well, I’m sure.”
“I’ll apologize?—”
“Your brother didn’t tell me what happened, but he doesn’t have to. I can read and listen, and people are going to try and twist it, make you look bad. We’ll stand by you, no matter what. And Iris?”
There’s a lump in my throat and it’s huge. “Yes, Mom?”
“If you’re going to see her to apologize for two uncouth and nasty Alphas whose parents should be hanging their heads in shame, don’t.”
A wave of love hits me, so hard.
Mom might never understand me in many ways. She loves society, and for her, the balls were magical, like her Season where she met my father and they fell in love.
But she believes me and stands by me, and I can see just how lucky I am.
I wish it was enough. I really do.
But it’s not.
For a moment, I waver in my resolve to bring up the cause with the Monarch, anyway.
Mari appears. “Iris?”
“Be good, girls,” Mom says, “and come right home. Reece will accompany you.”
We leave and Mari’s quick flash of a bright smile isn’t lost on me. Rue’s in the front garden, hovering.
“Can I come?”
“No,” I hiss, “this isn’t a posse.”
“But I want to come. I’ll be an asset. And, I can fill you in on all the gossip that’s hitting all the Stitch feeds. You?—”
“Rue,” Mari says, “we need you to keep an eye on Heath, make sure he doesn’t follow.”
Or set up dates for me. But I keep that to myself.
“And maybe see if there’s any good gossip we need to know.”
“I’m not five,” she says. Then she stops. “I can read all the gossip for research?”
Her eyes go round and light dances as she grins big.
“Yes,” Mari says.
Rue gives a little scream of joy, and honestly, I don’t know if we just created a monster.
The Monarch keeps me waiting. I’m alone.
Again.
Which is good because our walk was full of looks and sneers and whispers behind hands.
Thank goodness there weren’t too many people out and about the morning after the ball, but while Mari tried to smile and keep a cheery conversation going, I know it got to her. An up-front and center feel of what it’s going to be like for her in a couple of years.
But she’s lucky she’ll have longer to wait than me to make her debut into society. And Rue’ll have the longest of all. Or maybe that’ll be Dahlia.
I drag in a slow breath. I need to calm, just focus on the next steps.
“The Monarch is ready for you,” Fredrick says with a slight sneer.
It’s the same room as when I was last here, and yet it seems bigger, grander. Maybe that’s because it’s stripped back to nothing more than the chair and the raised platform.