Chapter 1 #2
Marcus, our security for the night, presses my clutch into my hand, and I feel a compact and lipstick through the smooth midnight blue silk.
Good. There’s no way my lipstick survived those kisses.
I spare Marcus as long of a glance as I dare.
His suit is simple, intended to let him fade into the background with other honor and bodyguards.
Unlike my pack mates, he isn’t dressed to impress, to stand out.
Tonight, like he has for nearly two years, he’ll watch over me. He’ll keep me safe.
He’ll act like he doesn’t long for me just as much as I long for him. Like he’s immune to my scent and perfume. Like we could never be anything more than friends.
The truth is so much more complicated, a thorny barb in my breast that pierces even deeper when I catch his eyes in the rearview mirror of the SUV as we head to the ball, just like I’ve done so many times before.
He hasn’t realized that I know he’s not immune to me.
And so, we dance around each other and this thing between us I so wanted to call love. But Marcus Haley lied to me, and I don’t know how to forgive him, even as I long for him.
My thoughts of Marcus are driven from my mind when we arrive at All Saints Hall, Fairhaven Academy’s ballroom for the night.
Like it was last year, it’s resplendent.
An illusion has been cast over the high ceiling to show the moonlit firmament above us, the light of the full moon bright against the inky night sky.
It’s this first full moon of the season we’ve gathered to celebrate.
Lunaria marks a period of change, and I feel that with my whole being.
Because tonight, I show the world how I’ve changed.
At last year’s Lunar Ball, I couldn’t save a taken omega from a tragic fate. Trinity, a junior at Fairhaven, who had been taken by Andrew Radcliffe and the Soldiers of Saint Aldous after confiding in me about Andrew’s dark past, killed herself after months of torment and torture.
I couldn’t save her, but I did save the fifty omegas Rad was experimenting on in a facility hidden away in New Brunswick’s dense pine forests.
Working with the resistance, we saved those omegas and destroyed the machines Rad was using to create the mind-control collars he was developing in the facility.
Just weeks ago, I escaped his terror for the last time. With the help of the omega Radcliffe had collared and made into his personal bodyguard, Blair, we toppled Radcliffe and destroyed the facility—for good.
Tonight is about showing the world that I was victorious.
Andrew Radcliffe tried to end me, but I survived him, the alpha who tried to rape me, the alpha that stalked and tormented me for over a year.
I survived the man who threatened to tear my pack apart, who nearly killed my beloved beta with dark magic, who lured Ian into a trap to hurt him, too.
His death is still on the lips of those in attendance at the celebration of the Feast of Lunaria.
But it’s my name they gasp as I step into the hall, my pack flanking me.
Pack Rose.
They’ll talk. They’ll talk about my unconventional pack and how I broke with tradition, renounced the alpha who had bought my mating contract and mated for love instead.
They’ll talk about my broken betrothal to Andrew Radcliffe, his very publicized fall from grace and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.
Let them talk.
Tonight, I reclaim my name and my thorns.
Stepping into the ball is like wading into a tank full of sharks, all eager to sink their teeth into us, but we’re not without friends and allies.
Headmaster Langford and his mate, Dr. Sienna Spencer-Langford, sweep ahead of a pack I don’t recognize to greet us, Langford gleefully clapping Ian on the shoulder.
The headmaster is a rosy-faced alpha, settling into middle age, but there’s no mistaking his dominance.
It holds the worst of the sharks at bay as he leans toward Ian.
“You’re happy,” he observes with a smile that makes his ruddy mustache twitch.
Ian beams, the smile lighting up his face and making his ice-blue eyes sparkle. “I am. More so than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Sienna shoots me a secretive little smile, woman to woman.
“You’re radiant, Juniper.” The older omega-turned-beta is just as radiant in a gun-metal silk sheath and matching heels, as at ease in her finery as she is in front of one of her history classes.
“You have my congratulations on completing your pack.”
If she picks up on the way my smile falters, she doesn’t mention it, but her sharp, knowing gaze never leaves me as she clasps my hands in hers.
We’re passed off to Pack Leclerc, and Cassian’s mother and fathers waste no time in greeting us, and pulling us, one after the other, into hugs and handshakes.
The whole pack is in attendance, even Cassian’s father, Gerard, though the older alpha leans heavily on a cane.
Cassian gives me a quick squeeze as I take in the injured mage.
Of those involved in the Soldiers of Saint Aldous’ attack on the Council of Nine, my mate’s father bears the worst injuries of those who lived; and Gerard Leclerc may not have lived if not for Ian’s quick work neutralizing and removing the wicked Mark of Baphomet hex.
The attack won’t soon be forgotten, the aftershocks still rippling through mage society.
We lost two council members, one in the attack and another to her injuries days later.
In the chaos of the days following the attack, two new council members were appointed to the Council of Nine, both sympathetic to the Soldiers of Saint Aldous.
They don’t have a majority on the council—not yet—but the Soldiers have never hesitated to pass legislation at the end of their scribes before.
They won’t now. Not as they claim power and pass through order after order while the rest of the council scrambles to right itself.
It’s madness, and it’s only going to get worse.
The Soldiers want to control omegas at any cost and eradicate those who can’t be controlled.
Omegas like me, I think with a frown, the air of triumph that buoyed me across the dance floor shrinking in my breast.
“Don’t you frown, dear girl,” Bethany says, taking my hands. “Tonight is a night of celebration.”
Cassian’s delicate omega mother is resplendent in the same midnight-blue silk I’ve donned and waves her hand at her son as she demands a picture of us together.
Cassian obliges with an indulgent grin before hugging his mother tightly and pulling her into his first dance of the night, and as Beth laughs and twirls, I hardly begrudge her claiming my mate’s first dance.
Our entry into tonight’s ball is so unlike my appearance at last year’s Lunar Ball.
Trapped in a collared dress Radcliffe forced me to wear if I wanted Trinity to live, I was scrutinized for any hint of impropriety by my brother, Aspen, and my father.
That night, I greeted my family of alphas by bearing my slender, collared neck. An owned omega.
Tonight, I greet my new family with joy. Free.
Free, and in the face of growing injustice, not without my triumphs, my courage, and my thorns.