Episode 8 #2
Again she has that smirk on her face like she’s won something.
The corner of my mouth twitches into a smile.
She just doesn’t fucking realize what she’s in the middle of.
“No, Isadora. That’s not going to happen.
At the very first indication of your heat, we’re going to send you away.
What you do while you're gone, I couldn’t care less.
Rut a pack of roving alphas to get relief if you like, but no one in my pack will touch you. ”
It's the least we can do to honor our mate. Our dying bloody mate.
It's not enough, though.
I know it’s not.
It's only a matter of time before my alpha snaps, and forces the issue, makes me run to Ren’s side to try to make it right.
It's already an itch under my skin, already a need that’s pounding through me.
Twenty-four hours of knowing who she is to me, and I’ve nearly called for our plane at least six times.
But Forsythe isn’t ready for that yet. Isn’t ready to say, ‘fuck it’ and choose Ren over everything.
I have to believe he’ll get there, though.
I can only hope that when he does, it won’t be too late.
“But…” Isadora starts, and I don’t wait to see what tripe she might spew from her mouth.
“And with the lovely new laws that the queen has enacted, that you have spoken in support of, any child you bear will have its paternity checked. What will you do when it comes back as none of ours, Isadora?”
She shakes her head. “But the Ashbourne line-”
“I don’t give a fuck about the Ashbourne line.”
“Forsythe does. He won’t leave me to suffer a heat alone.”
I almost laugh at her again. Because no matter what he says, I’m about ninety percent sure that Forsythe won’t be able to stomach touching Isadora. Especially not now. Now that we know Florence is our scent match.
No, we might marry her, make her a princess, but she’ll never be our bonded omega. Never have us with her during her heat. I’ll make sure of it.
Isadora’s chin wobbles and for a moment I think she might actually cry.
There’s a pang in my chest, a normal reaction to hurting someone.
I push it away and instead think about all of the cruel things she’s said about Florence during the show and after.
I think of how she tackled my omega, taking her out at the knees, intending to do real damage during the game of capture the flag.
“Actually,” I say, straightening up just a little. Isadora does too, and the move thrusts her breasts in my direction. “There is something I want to talk to you about. It's been bothering me. While we were on the show, were you in contact with anyone?”
Her lashes flutter as though I’ve surprised her. “Sorry?”
“I’m just curious why you went after Florence’s knees during a game of capture the flag where one of the rules was no physical contact of that nature. Did you know she had a previous injury? Were you trying to injure her further?”
There’s a very brief moment of fear on her face, of guilt, which is a laugh. But then she shakes her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Really.” I hum, and push to standing, towering over her much smaller frame.
“How interesting. That look on your face tells me you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Someone outside of the show told you about Ren’s injury and you sought to capitalize on it.
What was the plan? Hurt her so bad she had to be removed as a contestant all together and sent to the hospital? Who told you?”
Isadora stares up at me a fine tremor of fear shaking her body, head tilted and neck exposed in submission. At first I don’t understand why, but then I realize my dominance has risen with each word, filling the space between us. Perfect. She’ll tell me the truth now.
“Speak,” I command not even remotely sorry for using a bark on her. If she did what I think she did to Florence, then she deserves to have a little unwanted push.
Keeping her head tilted, Isadora blows out a breath.
“Yes, Thayer, that was the plan. To cause an injury bad enough that she would be removed from the show and away from you. It was obvious that you all were growing attached, you kept spending more and more time with her, and less time with me. Even when we were in the same room together, it was always her you were looking at. All of you. It was clear to me and… others that something needed to be done to separate you. Since you all seemed incapable of following orders the task fell to me.”
“I see,” I say softly, giving into the urge to wrap my hand around her throat and squeezing just a little. Not even enough to restrict her airways. But she still whimpers like she’s worried I might do more.
I won’t.
I don’t hurt women. As much as I might want to make an exception for the snobby little princess who attacked my omega with the intention of crippling her, I won’t.
“And who is it who gave you the order, Isadora?” I ask almost gently.
She hesitates for the longest moment and then shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Tell me.”
She shudders and then gives into the command. “The queen. She told me to do it.”
“You spoke to her during the show?”
Isadora nods, resigned. “Many times. She wanted to be kept informed of what was going on. I-I wasn’t the only person she had reporting to her. I know a handful of the production crew were too.”
I nod. We’d expected as much. Just like we’d expected that the attack on Florence was orchestrated by someone else outside the show. It would have had to be, considering no one on the show knew about Florence’s injury. I’m fairly certain not even the casting department knew.
She wouldn’t have told them and she certainly kept it hidden from all of us.
“I see. Thank you for telling me.” I release her throat and she stumbles back a step. “Now, I want to be clear. Queen Katherine ordered you to injure Florence during one of the physical challenges.”
Isadora takes another step back, inching toward the door.
Well, look at that, it appears she’s not as eager to talk to me as she thought.
“Well, no. She didn’t order me, order me. You know she doesn’t do that.” True. The same way she made vague threats to Forsythe about Ren’s family. “She told me about her knee and said something like, ‘wouldn’t it be awful if something happened to take her out of the competition?’”
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Fury burns in my gut. When it happened we’d suspected something like this, but having it confirmed is… enraging. Absolutely fucking enraging.
I feel like the minotaur seething in his maze.
“So then you took it upon yourself to do as the queen suggested.”
Isadora shrugs. She’s by the door now, almost in the hall. “We always knew how this was going to go, Thayer. I thought it would be a kindness to take her out so you wouldn’t have to.”
“A kindness,” I snort. “To whom?”
“To you. And to me. And to her.” She shakes her head and folds her arms over her stomach.
“Jesus, it’s like none of you realize what omegas are like.
The longer you murmured sweet words in her ears, the more you touched her and kept her when you should have sent her home, the more attached she grew to you.
It was cruel of you. Of all of you to do that to her, knowing how it would end. ”
Her words land like a blow. She is right. More right than she can know.
“Get out,” I snarl. And she doesn’t hesitate to retreat, leaving the door open.
I stride to it, slam it shut and lock it before retreating to my chair.
Guilt and fury and agony all swirl together in my stomach. She’s right.
As much as I want to deny it, she’s fucking right. We were cruel to Florence. We led her on when we knew we wouldn’t be able to pick her. We lied to her and to ourselves thinking that maybe we could make a different choice, one that would make us happy and not the queen.
And maybe in Isadora’s mind she was doing all of us a favor.
If Florence had been injured and removed from the competition, we never would have touched her in the nest she built for us. Never would have taken the relationship to the next level and we wouldn’t have needed to send her home, utter those five damning words that broke her.
You are not our omega.
Would she be suffering like she is? Sick and dying?
Probably not. We wouldn’t have needed to reject her. She just would have been quietly removed from the show.
Would that be better? Or worse?
Worse. My alpha snarls at me. So much worse.
Florence is ours. And the idea of not knowing that on a soul deep, bone deep level is… unacceptable.
She’s sick, yes. But we can heal her, cure her. And we will.
Of course we will.
I just have to wait for it to grow too much for Forsythe, the weight of her life, and he’ll make the right choice.
I have to trust that.
Later that day, we’re in the sitting room in a rare moment of togetherness. It's happened more in the last day and a half than it has in the month since we left the Azure Bay Resort and Spa.
Piers is pacing in front of the rest of us, hands clasped behind his back, his nerves fluttering down our bond, and turning his scent sharper.
It's putting my alpha on edge, not only because Piers is his mate and he wants to sooth him, but also because the last time he was this agitated, Piers told us about Florence. About her being diagnosed with RMD.
We’re all braced for what he’s going to tell us next.
“Ren’s going to do an interview. Live,” Piers says as though this is shocking news.
It kind of is. She’s been very careful so far to avoid making comments, giving interviews.
We haven’t filmed it yet, but I heard she refused to even attend the reunion episode of RoyaLove Getaway.
It's like as soon as we released her from the show, she decided that no one would get to see the aftermath of her heartbreak.
There have been pictures of her. Paparazzi shots taken on the street as she goes about her day, but she hasn’t commented on any of it. Save for her outrage at the Omega Act.