Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Despite my fumbling tutelage, the omegas thrive as they begin working with their affinities.
Some are further along than I would have guessed, already demonstrating fine control of their affinities.
Not all of them present as boldly as Aimee’s.
Some are quieter, but no less lethal, especially for omegas who want to fight back.
Many of them are too powerful to train safely.
One omega can poison anyone she touches.
Her poisons range from making the victim fall asleep to driving her victim mad.
To killing. She’s killed before, she says, but there’s no regret in her eyes.
Not when she slid her hand beneath the mask of a Soldier of Saint Aldous as they tried to capture her and touched his skin.
“They got me in an omega trap,” Camilla says, “but I took one of them down with me. Drove another mad when he gripped my wrist.”
However she learned to wield her affinity, her control is absolute. Since her earliest struggles when her affinity first emerged, she hasn’t harmed a soul she didn’t intend to. All the other omegas feel perfectly safe around the poisonous young mage.
If only I could control my affinity as well as she can control hers.
I hide in my nest when the others are gone or busy and push myself to my limits.
I try to call visions, forcing my affinity to the brink until my head aches, and my eyes burn from the effort.
I hide all this from my alphas and Simon.
They haven’t seen what I’ve seen and can’t imagine what drives me.
To protect the omegas and prevent a devastating future, I have to be better.
So, I hide like I did when trying to learn to call my magic my freshman year before Ian unwound the spell locking it away.
I secret myself away when my mates are busy or with the omegas, hiding just like I did from Marcus.
Saints, so much has changed since then. I may only be about to finish my sophomore year, but my first term at Fairhaven Academy seems like a lifetime ago.
Back when Cassian and Ian were cruel, and Luca lied to me, when Simon was a friend with a secret.
When I didn’t know Marcus was harboring perhaps the biggest secret of all.
What might my visions have shown me then, when my magic was new?
A betrothal to Rad? A kiss with Cassian under the bell tower as spring blossoms fell down around us like snow?
That was the kiss that changed everything, the kiss that led me to mating Cassian and building my pack.
And mating Cassian… that brought about even more change.
It was the first of the puppet strings my father wielded over me that I cut.
When I mated Cassian, I became something other than my father’s property to do with as he wished, to mate off to a cruel alpha like Rad to further his own devious agenda.
Even in the past few months, my life has changed immeasurably.
Luca mated me not long after Cassian did, after treating me to a night spent skating at Big Meadow Lake.
Ian lost his job because of me but mated me all the same.
He’s happier now, teaching the omegas, perhaps happier than I’ve ever seen him outside of the quiet moments we share together.
So much has changed, but even more stands to change if my vision comes true.
I meditate, trying to capture that grim vision once more.
I need more information. Something big is coming, and soon.
I can feel it in my gut. I don’t know if it’s instinct or my affinity, but I need to be prepared.
I do what I did when first working on my affinity with Ian: I dig into my emotions and my memories.
Then, I dig into my tormented past, into the vitriol Rad spewed at me, but this time I focus on the details of the vision, details that make me so sick my stomach roils.
Suddenly, I’m sucked into part of the vision. Just a snippet, but the details are as clear as a sunny summer day. If only the vision were so idyllic.
An omega fights against an omega trap, crying out.
Blood runs in rivulets down her hands and her hips.
“Take me, not them!” she shouts in a voice hoarse from screaming.
The trap winds around her, wrapping tighter to her body, vicious thorns digging into her flesh, but her tears aren’t from the trap, but from what she’s forced to bear witness to.
An alpha, struck down by the Ever Ember hex before her very eyes.
He isn’t as lucky as those Ian has saved. The ember sears through his skin toward his heart as he roars in pain.
“Mercy!” the omega cries, but there’s no mercy on the mask that stares down at her. No mercy in the vicious rictus of the Baphomet mask worn by the Soldier murdering her husband.
The vision fades, and I grasp for it, forcing myself to remember the gruesome details. I pull and strain, trying to untangle it so I can see the rest, but it’s to no avail. I fight until my nose bleeds and tears stream down my cheeks, and that’s exactly how Luca finds me.
He blots my bloody nose with the tail of his flannel shirt, holding my head in his hands as he stares into my eyes. His own sea-green eyes are lined with worry. “This isn’t the way, princess.”
“I have to get stronger,” I whimper, shutting my eyes tight against the headache bursting behind them. “I thought if I focused on the grimmest parts of my vision, I could get more details, and I did. But it’s not enough. I have to keep trying, Luca.”
Luca gathers me into his arms in a hug that pulls me up to my knees, nuzzling my cheek, marking me with his scent. “Not like this, Junie. Never like this. Why didn’t you tell us you were working on your affinity?”
He touches me everywhere he can, stroking and coaxing until I begin to relax. Still, my tears don’t stop. Not after what I saw.
“I didn’t want anyone to worry.”
“We’re always going to worry about you. Will you tell me what you saw, now?”
“Soon,” I promise, my voice thick with tears. “I’ll tell everyone soon.”
He strokes his hand down my back, holding me close. “Whatever you saw, it isn’t everything. There’s joy to be had, too. Why not try to call those visions?”
“I wouldn’t know how.”
Luca cradles me in his lap, still slowly stroking my back. “Try as you would any other vision? I don’t know. I’m not Ian. Can’t you, I don’t know, focus on your breath and gather your magic? That sounds like something Ian would say, doesn’t it?”
I crack the barest smile at that. “It does.”
“So, try it if you’re up for it. But only if you’re up for it.”
“I am,” I say softly. Inhaling deeply, I do exactly what Ian would have instructed me to do.
I focus on my breath and find the place where my affinity dwells within me.
I think of the near future, of my love for my pack, of their love for me.
And slowly, achingly slowly, beautifully poignant, the visions begin to flow.
I see a celebration at the restaurant in Promontory Tower, a champagne toast, and the laughter of my men. I see their easy smiles.
I see myself cataloging new affinities with Sienna, making a record of every single omega we rescued, collecting all the details we discover on her laptop.
And then, breathlessly then, I feel myself on the back of Luca’s bike.
I open my eyes with a gasp. “We’re going somewhere, you and me,” I tell him, awe in my voice. “On your bike. I saw it. Where? Where are we going to go?”
He smirks at me and steals a lingering kiss. “You’ll just have to wait and find out, now won’t you?”
“Oh, come on, Luca. Please?”
“Nope,” he says, his voice serious though his eyes dance with the tease. He loops his arms around my hips and swings me closer to his body, dropping a kiss on my jaw then down my neck. “My beautiful princess will just have to wait and see. And don’t try for another vision and ruin the surprise.”
At my soft whine, his kisses turn heated and, for now, the dark vision is forgotten. He eases me onto my back, a thigh between my legs, giving me the friction I’m already yearning for. And then everything but scent and slick and love and touch falls away.
We’re curled beneath the blankets of my nest, thoroughly sated when I finally speak again.
“I need to learn more about my affinity,” I tell Luca, tracing the lines of the tattoo on his shoulder. “But I don’t know where to start, or even how to start.”
“Why won’t you let Ian help you?”
“He’s busy,” I say, waving my hand dismissively.
“I’m never too busy for you,” the alpha in question says from the door to my nest where he leans against the doorjamb, face grim. “Have I made you feel that way, my darling? That I’m too busy for you?”
I shake my head. I’m the one who’s been withdrawing to my nest, practicing my abilities in secret—or trying to.
“I don’t even know what I’m capable of,” I murmur. “I feel like I’m groping in the dark. Some of the omegas I’m teaching already know their abilities so well.”
“No doubt forced to learn quickly in Rad’s evil facility,” Luca says, stroking my back.
“It’s true,” Ian murmurs, closing his bright blue eyes. He drags a deep breath into his lungs and exhales sharply. “Sometimes, I overhear them when I’m going around and helping them. They learned what they did under threat of torture. They learned under duress, collared and commanded to.”
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat and nod. All the more reason I need to keep them safe. Luca flips us around until his back is against the wall of my nest and I’m curled up in his lap. Ian comes into my nest, crouching down in front of me.
“There are many of your abilities that we’ve yet to train. Your ability to command, for instance. You’ve only done it a few times before. You’ve learned to read minds and predict the near future. I have no doubt you have untapped talents, but what were you trying to practice on your own?”
“I was trying to recapture the vision to see if I could find out more details.”
“The vision that has you so scared?”
I nod.
“Simon is right,” Luca says quietly, nuzzling my temple, still trying to soothe me. “You don’t have to carry those horrors alone. I know recounting it will be difficult, but you should unburden yourself. Let us carry some of that weight for you.”
I turn into his chest, nuzzling him back, before I finally sigh and acquiesce.
The moment Cassian and Simon return home from their study session, I sit all my men and Marcus down around our dining table, gulping in deep breaths to try to calm my racing heart.
Cassian slides across the bench seat and tucks me under his arm, pulling me close and enveloping me in his sea-salt scent.
“I saw a lot of things,” I begin. “It was the most detailed vision I’ve ever had, and the most disturbing.
” Slowly, my voice stuttering and thin, I tell them about what I saw.
About alphas casting fire and ice magic without scribes.
Of the horde before Baphomet’s Prince, roaring out their victory.
About the truck that took the omegas to the desolate internment camp.
Of the war that breaks out where packs are slain before their omegas.
“And then it happened to me, just like it did in the images Kel forced on me in class,” I say quietly. “It was Luca, and then you, Cass, in my vision. I see all your deaths in my nightmares, and they all play out the same way.”
Cassian lets out a heavy breath and holds me tighter. “We aren’t going anywhere, love, not without a fight.”
“You can’t promise that,” I let out, my voice hoarse with tears. “None of you can.”
“But I am promising you that,” Cassian insists.
“Damn the vision,” Simon says suddenly. “It’s only one possible future, right? The future can still be changed, can’t it?”
I look around, my eyes finally settling on Ian. He shakes his head. Like me, he doesn’t know the answers to Simon’s questions.
“A question for Sienna, perhaps. And something we can research. I agree with Cassian. None of us are going down without a fight. We’re fighting for you, Juniper, but we’re fighting your fight with you too. So let us help you. Let us in, my darling.”
“You didn’t tell them what you said to Kel,” Marcus cuts in, his voice quiet, but a faint smile graces his full lips.
At that, I smile. I showed Kelvin Montrose my thorns, and I don’t regret it. No matter what my mouthing off may bring. “I told him to ask Rad how I got out of an omega trap and then reminded him he couldn’t because Rad’s fucking dead.”
Simon lets out a bark of laughter. “There’s the vicious kit-kat I am so very, very fond of.”
“A rose of great beauty and deadly thorns,” Luca muses.
“Come now, my darling,” Ian insists. “If you’re not too tired from trying to force visions on your own, we can train. Who wants to do the terrible work of firing sparks at our omega with me?”