Chapter 30 #2
Later that day, Simon and Ian gently bathe me. The hot water feels amazing after not being clean for so long, but it’s their touch that soothes me the most.
They help me from the bath and settle me back down in my nest. Simon comes and sits behind me, his long legs stretched out on either side of mine, and he gently combs his fingers through my tangled hair.
“You were so brave, kit-kat. So smart. So strong.”
“Not so smart. I slashed my father’s face with a scalpel.”
“Juniper,” he says slowly. “Why did you have a scalpel?”
We’re interrupted before I can explain, Cassian coming to the top of the stairs.
“Mai and Daniel are here to heal you, love.”
A spike of fear jolts through our bonds. I look up into his eyes, a frown on my face.
“The thought of you leaving the pack house for anything had me on edge,” he explains. “The Huongs were kind enough to come here. Can you walk?”
I nod, and he helps me up, hovering around me as if I might fall at any second.
“Simon, you too,” Cassian says. “You need to get checked out and healed, too.” When Simon goes to argue, Cass continues. “For my sake if you won’t do it for your own, please.”
Simon finally stands with a nod. “Fine, but only after Junes has been seen to. Saints, Cass. She has a black eye.”
“Courtesy of my father,” I say quietly.
Cassian’s face and emotions are an unreadable snarl. “We’ll talk after Mai and Daniel leave. We have questions, and I’m sure you do too.”
I let him guide me downstairs, where my pack has gathered on the sofa, all of their arms folded. I look at Mai with a frown. Saints, my pack looks downright threatening.
Mai shakes her head. “They’re fine. They just won’t let me heal them until I’ve taken a look at you. Come, let me check you over.”
My pack and I are quiet as Mai works, save for Cassian who is having a murmured conversation with Daniel in the kitchen area of our great room.
“Your family too?” Daniel asks, his voice quiet.
Cassian gives him a jerky nod. “I have no idea if they’re alive. I had an opportunity to save my mate, and I had to take it.”
Fear spikes through our bond again. He may have needed to save me, but his fear is so potent that I know he regrets not being about to get his family out, too. Whatever plan they laid, however they crept through the dark to find me, that was the only time they had to stage a rescue.
“Cass?” I ask. “Your mother was alive after the attack. They’ll keep her alive to keep your fathers docile, just like they threatened to do with me.
She’s leverage, and too important to kill.
” I turn to Daniel as Mai casts soothing spells over my black eye.
“Have there been any hostage negotiations yet?”
He shakes his head. “The message the Soldiers of Saint Aldous seem to be sending is ‘attack and we start killing hostages.’ No formal negotiations have occurred so far, though.”
“We have to go back in for them!” I exclaim. “Cass—”
Cassian swallows hard, and a wave of regret washes through our bond. “We don’t have the numbers. It would be suicide.”
“But they’re your parents!”
“We were lucky to get you out, love.”
“All those hostages…”
Mai shakes her head as she wraps an enchanted bandage around my wrist where I yanked against the cuffs. “The whole situation is ghastly.”
“It isn’t just hostages. There were test subjects,” I say quietly. “And my father was removing their maginaluses. He’s giving their affinities to alphas.”
The young doctor shudders. “Evil, despicable man. We have to do something—and soon.” She finally sighs as she listens to my heart and lungs. “You’re malnourished, probably all of you. And weak. Take the time to rest and heal.”
I stew in quiet at her words as she and Daniel heal my mates from their hexes and bruises.
What can we do against a force that large, especially if they’ll start killing hostages if anyone acts against them?
And what could we do that the army could not?
Even with the resistance on our side, there’s no way we could infiltrate such a well-guarded and well-warded campus like the consortium’s.
I agree with her that something must be done, but how? With what resources?
As soon as the Huongs leave, Cass calls a pack meeting, though we don’t move from the sofa to the dining table where our pack meetings normally occur. We’re mourning the horrors we’ve faced, numb now that we’re free.
“Marcus, you too,” Cassian says as Marcus hesitates by the stairs. “This concerns all of us.”
Marcus comes and takes a seat on the sofa across from me, tenderness in his eyes as he takes me in.
“Tell us what happened, princess,” Luca says quietly.
I take a deep breath and let it out through my nose.
“I was held with other omegas for a time, including your mom, Cass. Then my father locked me in the room you found me in. After some time alone, he finally came for me, telling me I was going to help him with his work. He taunted me, as I’m sure you can all imagine.
When we got to the operating theater, he had Soldiers strap an omega to a surgical table.
I’d had a vision about this before, about being forced to aid him in an operation like this.
Saints, I could even feel the weight of the scalpel in my vision as I gave it to him.
This time, for real, I went for his jugular.
He was faster. I got his cheek. He caught me when I tried to run and put a collar around my neck. ”
“You tried to kill your own father? Saints, kit-kat, you’re so brave.”
“More foolish than brave,” I admit. “My heat came early, and, at some point, he sedated me. He told me he wants my affinity for Baphomet’s Prince, but that his success rate needed to improve first. When he sedated me, I thought…
I thought he was going to do the operation.
Then all of you came. When I saw Luca’s mask, I imagined the worst, that the Soldiers had come to punish me for slashing at my father, that they were going to…
” A lump lodges in my throat, and I shake my head as tears spill down my cheeks.
Luca pulls me to his side, tucking me against him. “But we got you out, Junie. As we always intended.”
I look up at him, tears clinging to my lashes. “But how? How did you get us all out?”
“Secret tunnels, mostly,” Ian says wryly.
“There’s a whole system of them under the consortium.
They must have been added to help the students and faculty escape, back when the consortium was built.
They’ve long been forgotten, but the headmaster knew of them.
It was easy enough to overpower our two guards and steal their scribes.
The headmaster knows the campus better than anyone and knew you had to be in one of the treatment rooms. We found you and then escaped through a tunnel leading out of the consortium. ”
“But why me? Why would he choose to help you over all the other packs being held hostage? Why rescue one omega?”
“He overheard the Soldiers taunting us about the butcher’s plans for you. He knew we had to get you out,” Cassian explains.
“But Cass, you could have gotten your family out!” I protest.
“Junes, it was them or you, and I chose you. I always will. I wish I could have freed my parents, but we couldn’t stage a larger rescue mission without drawing attention.”
“It’s good we got you out, based on everything you’ve said,” Marcus says quietly. “Your father is a monster.”
“He has to be stopped,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “And we have to rescue the hostages and test subjects. We have to.”
The ‘but how?’ lingers in the space between us.
Simon looks up from his laptop, eyes weary with fatigue. “I’m already on it.”
“You’re off it, until you’ve rested,” Cassian mutters. “You heard Doc. We need to rest and heal. All of us.”
For once, I don’t fight my mate. We’re all fragile, even my strong alphas, and I’m perhaps the most fragile of all.
We need to rest. And then we need to strike back.