Chapter 46
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
Iris
I race into the house, through the back entrance which is meant to be for staff, in tandem with Mari and Rue.
“This way,” Mari pants, the music still playing. As we arrive in the sitting room, Mom tries to hold a frantic Stephan back as the paramedics do their job. Violet is sitting in a chair, face clammy and pale.
There’s a gurney next to her, but the paramedics are tending to her where she is. For now.
If this was a scene from a movie, he’d go from frantic to the man who swoops in and saves his love at the last minute. But she wouldn’t be pregnant. It’d be something else he saves her from, like a jealous ex.
But this is real life, and he just looks scared and focused on Violet.
Heath’s at the door with Penrith. I can hear them directing people away as they try to make sure the ball continues.
“Is this a scandal?” Rue asks. “It doesn’t look like a scandal.” She goes to rush over to Violet, but Mom catches her and Mari goes to Stephan to try and talk to him.
I slide in and hold Violet’s hand.
“I think it was those pickles,” she whispers with a small laugh.
There’s a blood pressure cuff on her arm and the Beta EMT is checking something on a portable machine. The other EMT is fussing with a stethoscope, and while I’m smiling, my hearts hammering hard.
People have babies early. But this is too early, isn’t it?
My chest is so tight, it’s getting harder to breathe.
Stephan isn’t just scared, he’s absolutely terrified. Even Mari’s magic calming power isn’t touching him.
“Mr. Ashford,” the male EMT in front of Violet says, putting away his stethoscope. “Can I speak to you?”
Violet jerks up, her hand almost crushing mine as she struggles to sit up. Her pale cheeks flare with color. “No—what is it? Please?—”
“Violet,” Mom says, a note of steel behind her soothing tone to my sister, “don’t stress yourself.” Then she turns and grabs Stephan’s arm to stop him from falling over. “Whatever it is, you can say it in front of my daughter.”
Stephan’s forehead’s sweaty, eyes darting, and it’s so akin to Vi’s panic attacks I get it.
“Is the baby okay?” I ask.
“My mate,” Stephan pushes out, “is she?—”
“She’s good, Stephan,” Mari says, “look at her.”
“You can tell us all,” Mom says, crossing her arms. “We’re family.”
The Beta looks annoyed as the other packs up her equipment, but she leans closer to Violet and whispers, “You’re going to be fine, Mama, and so is baby. But we’re going to want to take you in.”
“Could just be some false contractions, but her blood pressure is a little higher than we’d like, so it’s just best if we keep an eye on things,” the other one says.
Stephan rushes over to her and kisses her forehead. “You’re going to be fine.”
It sounds like he’s saying it more to convince himself than anything else.
“Oh, god,” Violet says and lets out a breath, “I didn’t mean to create such a scene.”
I snort. “Don’t be stupid. The party was just getting boring. The guests needed something new to talk about. You did them a favor.”
The door opens and Dahlia runs in to hug Vi, shoving me out of the way. All at once, the entire family crowds closer to make sure things are really okay. Quinn comes in, too.
Rue bounces on her toes. “That QB is?—”
“Saying what a great ball this is?” I ask in warning.
“She has a lot to say, as usual, but I’m gonna let her know all is dandy here.” Rue beams and kisses Vi’s cheek. “And I have the best sisters.”
The EMT personnel wait impatiently with their gurney, but Rue wrinkles her nose at them.
“You’re the star,” Rue says to Violet.
“Rue.” Heath glowers at her, but she just dances around him with a big grin.
“Don’t worry, you will be belle of the ball one day, Heather.” Quinn snorts laughter.
“Are you still here, witch?” Heath snaps at her.
“I’m going to let the QB know it’s a great ball and no baby yet.” With that, Rue pulls out her phone and darts out the door.
With one hand in mine and the other in Stephan’s, Violet looks at me. “Why can’t I go home? It was just a false alarm, and I told Stephan that, I?—”
“You’re everything to me, Princess,” he says, voice rough with emotion. “If you have to spend the rest of your pregnancy in hospital?—”
“I’ll run off with the first cute orderly,” she says and leans in to kiss him softly on the lips.
“I think I’m on Stephan’s side here,” I say. “Go to the hospital. It’ll just be overnight. A day or two, max. Better safe than sorry.”
Violet bites her lip. “I need to make sure we get out of here with as little fanfare as possible…I don’t want to spoil Pen’s ball or your chances, Iris…”
Heath comes over. “You won’t. She has someone interested enough.”
As everyone else starts to file out, Pen enters the room. “I’ll give them five minutes before my staff take them all out the discreet way.” She glances at me. “As for the Monarch…that exit is on her.”
I’ve lost my chance to speak to her, she means. At least for now.
“You’ll be okay, too,” Violet whispers to me. “Remember, family’s important, but don’t let Heath push you around too much.”
She gives my hand one last squeeze before letting me go.
Pen takes the opportunity to loop her arm through mine and lead me out of the room and into her small study across the hall. She closes the door once we’re inside, cutting off the music and noise from the party.
I’m still a big bundle of nerves after everything with Violet, but I suck in a deep breath to try and calm myself down.
“Well,” Pen starts as she taps her can to the floor twice, “that certainly wasn’t the entertainment I had planned for the evening, but it did get the heart skipping, didn’t it?”
“Yeah…” I sigh, “it did.”
Tilting her head, Pen regards me with a bit of sympathy. “Miss Gardener, I’m afraid things…are starting to strain in Sabine. I hear rumors of unrest in the Lower Side, and there’s talk about rebellion against the Council.”
Why do I feel like she’s saying this because she knows more than she’s letting on? Specifically, about my, Killian, and Xavier’s involvement with the Nightshades?
“But, even though we had only a few meetings, Mr. Riven seems to hold more than what’s on the surface.
He seems honest, and dare I say, kindhearted.
But your Mr. Black…” She pauses, studies me.
“He’s slippery, a dark one, who reminds me a bit of Sophine back in the day.
It’s a compliment in a way. He’s ambitious, but that ambition can also blind him to what’s right in front of him. ”
Pen reaches for a small package on the mantel and passes it to me. “For little Emmie.”
I hold it in my hand, confused. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, my dear, a time’s coming where you’ll need to make a tough decision,” she says. “There are many rights, many wrongs. You’ll need to decide which is worth it, and who and what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
She means my heart or my family’s tattered reputation.
There’s no way I can have both.
The evening wears on. Thank goodness for Mari who’s the perfect emotional support, and Mom who has turned into a genteel mama bear, keeping others who have too many questions away.
We leave at midnight, and I’m beyond ready for bed. Well, actually, I’m ready to put all the things that Pen didn’t say to one side, text with Vi, and then maybe indulge in some flirting with Killian and Xavier.
Killian’s wild, dirty ways of spanking thrill me, scare me, and turn me on, especially when I imagine the big, silent Xavier watching.
My heart kicks up a notch. Maybe I love Killian, too, but I dance around the whirlpool of need he opens, the need to taunt him to the edges of sanity, while I know Xavier’s there as a steady relief.
And Xavier… I close my eyes. Gentle, rough, wild in a different way, but his flirting as Mr. Scarsby makes me flutter inside, and I want that.
I want them both.
They feel like home.
I—
“My office, Iris,” Heath says, the moment I put my hand on the stair’s railing to follow everyone else upstairs. “Now.”
With a sigh, I turn, and trail in after him. I don’t have the energy for his nonsense right now.
Immediately, Heath starts pacing in front of Dad’s huge wooden desk he took over after his death.
“Whatever I did, I’m sorry,” I say, hoping to speed this verbal lashing up.
He flicks me a dark look, one I can’t decipher. Then he stops pacing. “You’re my sister, and I love you. But you know the situation. We need a mating. A good one. Someone who’s staid, scandal free, and very much established.”
“You mean rich.”
“And successful. Before we left, Anton Decker sent me an email. Asking to be your mate.”
“What?” Horror fills me.
He was nice enough but the antithesis of me. He’s settled. Boring. The kind of man who’ll make some woman happy, but that woman isn’t me.
“You danced with him tonight. He’s closer to your age. He said you were pretty and quiet and could be the perfect mate for a man of his stature. You can hold a conversation and seem intelligent. The banking community, the kind he deals with, appreciates intelligence. He said?—”
“I can’t. I don’t know him.”
Heath doesn’t quite meet my gaze. “He’s a good man and love will come. He even offered to take you on as an employee, too. If you want to work, that is. I figured that might be something you’d be interested in.”
An Omega in the banking industry? An upper class Omega in the workforce in general would be huge.
But…
“I—”
“You’ve accepted his offer,” he says. “You’ll be mated by the end of the Season. And tomorrow, you will be to the Monarch and then marked.”
Marked? No!
Panic scrabbles at me. “Heath, please?—”
“Enough. You’re not the only family member. We both have to make sacrifice,” he says. There’s a heaviness to his words. A sadness. “Tomorrow?—”
“My sacrifice is my entire future, while yours is taking part in seasons. Hardly the same thing.”
He doesn’t reply. Instead, he walks to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a very heavy-handed drink.
“Heath, please.”
Still, he doesn’t answer, but I notice the slight shake to his hand as he runs fingers through his hair. He’s a wreck.
No wonder Violet kept having panic attacks.
This is insane.
Words hover on my lips—ones that could save me and damn me at the same time. If I tell him I’ve already been marked, if I confess everything about Killian and Xavier, he’ll finally get off his crusade to mate me to Anton. But the shame and scandal it’ll bring…
“Go to bed, Iris,” he says taking another big gulp of his drink. “We can discuss the details tomorrow.”
He turns away from me.
I know my brother.
The conversation is over.
Turning, I leave. So many feelings bombard me at once. Anger, annoyance, sorrow, fear.
It’s unfair.
All of it.
I storm up to my room, and in there, I catch sight of the cloak Killian put on me for the Nightshade meeting. Suddenly, I know I can’t stay here another minute. I need…I need Xavier. I need Killian. I need out.
Screw reputations and scandal.
My family will survive, and I can be back by morning if I have to. But I can’t stand being in this house a second longer.
I switch my dancing shoes for my thick ass-kicking boots and shove pillows under my sheets. Then I turn out my light and sneak out by climbing down the trellis outside my window, like I used to do when I’d meet with Quinn.
And then?
I run.
It’s freeing, wild, to sneak through the quiet shadows of the treelined streets of the Upper Side.
My heart misses a few beats as I hear voices. Footsteps. Sometimes close, other times it seems far away, but the noise grows as the neighborhood changes. Soon, I’m in midtown which is pretty dead except for where it starts to meet the Lower Side.
I switch to the streets and start to move away from the water. As I come to round an apartment building, I slam into a girl with a suitcase, who shoves me to the ground and runs.
A bit stunned, I pick myself up.
A guy dressed in dark clothes runs after her, dodging me, and saying, “You never saw us, Omega,” as he passes.
My heart clenches. Is she in trouble? But the girl stops and hands the case to him, and then they disappear to where the near distant sound of a boat is coming from, where the boardwalk is.
The apartment building is on the edge, next to a thin spate of parkland, right before the boardwalk and water.
It’s so odd, it sticks with me. His cheap suit, dark hair, and dismissive Alpha attitude that stinks of bureaucracy… She’s blonde, small, and smells of gasoline. A Delta.
Not my business.
I pick myself up just as I shadow falls over me. Hands grab my shoulders.
“Gotcha.”