Chapter 31
Callum
“Something is wrong with June,” Archer says as Torin steps into the room and closes the door behind him.
We’re in the two-bedroom apartment four doors away from Juniper’s. Our new home away from home. We can never stray too far or for too long from our cage, but one of us always stays here. Close enough to help Juniper if our families decide to use her to hurt us.
Except today.
Today, we’re all here because Archer called Torin and told him to forget about watching Veronica at the house. Something was wrong with Juniper, and we needed to talk. Now.
I nudge the stack of paperwork away and get up from the desk I set up in the corner of the living room. Rolling my neck, I wince when it cracks, and I rub the soreness away from sitting hunched over for far too long.
Buying an apartment building was easier than I thought.
Keeping track of the problems with it so we can give Juniper the safe, clean, and warm building she deserves is not so easy.
It’s downright stressful, even with a general manager doing the physical checks, so Juniper doesn’t bump into the new owner of this building: me.
“She didn’t go to work yesterday,” Torin says with a yawn. He’s usually here at night, watching over Juniper so Wilkes Booth doesn’t make an appearance one night. “I knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer.”
“She’s sick,” Archer says.
“She works a lot. Maybe she’s just tired,” I say. “We’re all tired.”
I never had to work growing up. I had a trust fund set up before I was born, and I inherited even more money from my mom when she passed.
There were rules and expectations I rebelled against once I learned what they were.
Not because of who my father is, but who my mother was.
If I hadn’t had someone like her in my life, I’d have turned out just like the other spoiled heirs who embraced buying and selling omegas like their fathers and grandfathers before them.
“You weren’t paying attention, were you?” Archer asks, frowning at me.
“To?” I prompt, distracted.
“To what they told us after Juniper left us,” Archer says. “The potential for bond sickness.”
My chest tightens, and a wave of panic makes it hard to breathe.
“She doesn’t have bond sickness,” I deny automatically.
“Her heat is coming, and that means her body is going to start missing her mates. Her bed’s unmade, so she’s been sleeping, but it doesn’t look like it. Something is wrong,” Archer says.
“I’m not tired.” Torin says.
“Neither am I, at least not the bone-deep fatigue they warned us about. But we only went through the bond breaking once. Juniper went through it three times,” Archer says.
“Three breaks for three mates,” I mutter.
I hadn’t paid close attention to the warning a woman gave us after the bond-breaking. I was too busy grieving.
What had the woman said?
Bond sickness can be fatal if it’s not treated, and the only known treatment is for mates to reunite.
We’ve mostly been keeping our distance from Juniper. What we did to her—how we treated her—was and is unforgivable. We all know that. She needs time and space to decide when or if she can forgive.
Juniper nearly died during the bond breaking. Stopped breathing. Unconscious for days.
If this is bond sickness, it will kill her.
I frown at Archer. “Would she—”
“No,” Archer cuts in, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall beside the door. “Walking her to work is one thing. Forgiveness is something else. She’s not there yet.” He stares into space, expression bleak. “I always know when she’s remembering something we did.”
We failed Juniper before. We failed her in every way we could, and she could still die because of what we did.
I start pacing as I think.
I barely remember the days after the bond breaking.
Juniper was gone, and I bounced between rage at myself for failing her so badly and terrified that she was dead and everyone was hiding it from us.
I barely ate, slept, or thought of anything but Juniper.
I have never felt so lost in my life, and I know that whatever I felt, she felt it three times as badly. I lost one mate. She lost three.
“I’ll be back,” I say, walking out of the apartment and closing the door behind me.
Going to see her isn’t wise. She doesn’t know we’re, at least some of the time, living a few doors away, but I need to see her myself.
I walk to her door and knock.
Five minutes pass before I hear movement from the other side of the door, the soft creak of floorboards, and her door swings open.
One look at her exhausted face, and it’s clear Archer was right. This isn’t tiredness from work. This is a person forcing themselves to stand through sheer willpower alone.
“Can we talk?” I ask her.
She stares at me for a second too long, and her gaze is evasive. She knows what I want to talk about, and she’d rather avoid it. “Can we do it another time? I’m tired, and I need to sleep.”
“I know why you’re tired.” If this weren’t literally a matter of life or death, I’d give her what she wants, but this conversation is too important to walk away from, even for her.
Her fingers tighten around the edge of the door, and she lets out a quiet sigh.
Stepping aside, she holds the door open. “Just to talk, then I want you to leave.”
I walk inside.
Her apartment is warmer courtesy of the more efficient AC unit the contractors installed in the basement. It won’t truly be warm until we’ve replaced the windows, but it’s better. A lot better.
Starting next week, we’ll replace all the furniture and kitchen appliances. Archer spoke to my building manager about new doors with sturdier chains, and those go in at the same time. And not just for Juniper.
I thought Juniper’s apartment had been poorly maintained.
I had no idea how bad the other units were until the general manager I hired came to me with all the problems he found with the building.
It was a three-hour meeting that ended with a raging headache and a pathological desire to punch the old super in the face.
As soon as the building was mine, I fired the super.
I’d already seen how poorly maintained the building was before I bought it.
Learning that two apartments didn’t even have properly working AC and hadn’t for the last three winters had been rage-inducing.
The old owner had been a slumlord, and the super had been just as bad.
Everyone in this building deserves better.
The door clicks as Juniper shuts it, and I turn to face her. She has her back to me with her hand flat on the door.
“Juniper?”
She doesn’t respond.
Concerned, I take a step toward her. “Juniper?”
She drops, and she drops fast. I only catch her because I was already on my way toward her. “Juniper!”