Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Miss Rose, I can absolutely give you a special dispensation to return to your classes, but are you sure this is what you want?” Headmaster Langford asks. “You’ve been through something horrific. It would be completely understandable if you wanted to withdraw.”
“Of course she doesn’t want to withdraw,” Sienna protests. “She’s a scholar, and she’s been without a sense of normalcy for weeks.”
“That’s it exactly,” I say, grateful to Sienna for understanding.
Because I’ve missed so many weeks of my classes, I need the headmaster’s permission to return to the academy and complete the first term of my junior year.
I didn’t anticipate how much leaving home would frighten me.
I spent the entire car ride on edge, checking over my shoulder to see if we were being followed.
I know Marcus did the same, his eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror often.
Cassian still doesn’t like the idea of me returning to classes, but he understands. Our bond chokes with fear and tension, and he does his best to keep his emotions locked down, even though I want to feel everything he feels. He still worries about his parents, and I do, too.
“I’m sure I can catch up on my classes with time and effort,” I assure the headmaster.
“Of that I have no doubt,” Headmaster Langford replies. “Let me at least exempt you from your father’s class. I don’t believe you’re safe under his tutelage, not after everything you’ve told me. He wants your affinity!”
“I can’t graduate without it,” I point out. “Besides, my father is a wealth of information I can tap. I’m uniquely able to do so.”
The headmaster frowns, his mustache twitching. “If you insist on sitting Magical Medicinals, you’ll need protection beyond what a single bodyguard can offer. No offense intended to Mr. Haley.”
“None taken,” Marcus says from where he’s examining the bookshelves in the mansion’s library. “Her protection is paramount.”
“Ian and Cassian have offered to accompany me to my father’s class as an additional layer of protection.”
“You can’t like this, Ian.”
“I’d do anything for my mate, Martin,” Ian replies. “You already know the trials of being mated to a bright, curious scholar.”
Sienna shoots the headmaster an impudent little smile. “That he does.”
A scholar. Just like my father once told my professors I’d only be at my future pack’s acquiescence. Now I have mates who encourage my scholarship. In so many ways, I’ve cut the puppet strings binding me to my father. Still, I must stay vigilant. I must keep fighting.
Despite feeling scared, I return to my classes the following Wednesday, accompanied by Marcus.
My life has changed so much since the convocation ball that I’m barely the same woman that sat through these classes weeks ago, though I’m no less determined.
I’ll arm myself with whatever skills and knowledge I can to bring down my father and Baphomet’s Prince.
Professor Grafton draws me aside before the start of Spellcrafting Theory.
Marcus’ hackles go up, but the kindly professor only wants to offer me additional tutoring.
After trying to catch up to his lecture and completely failing, I take him up on the offer.
Spellcrafting Theory and Advanced Spellcrafting are going to be more challenging than I thought, especially since I’ve missed so many of the fundamentals.
I get similar offers from Professors McNamara and Hayes and gratefully accept their help.
Omega Seminar is the only class I don’t have to catch up in.
Leigh purses her lips as she surveys the three of us.
“Pack Jordan is going to find Bitsy a pack,” Ellie says, her voice hollow.
She still comes to class but spends the rest of her time in Bitsy’s old cottage.
Whenever we see her, which isn’t often, her eyes are red from crying.
She’s inconsolable and doing something I know too well: she’s withdrawing from the world.
Leigh sighs. “As I expected they would in light of the new legislation. It’s still unfortunate. I was truly hoping Miss Jordan would find a pack well suited to her outgoing nature.”
I can’t imagine Bitsy as meek or submissive. I only hope her father solicits kind and patient alphas for her mating contracts—once the most I could have wished for for myself.
“I’m afraid to announce that we have a new curriculum, passed down by the Council of Nine,” Leigh presses on.
“You will be tested on this curriculum, and the results will be provided to the government. Failure to meet their criteria will result in immediate expulsion. As to be expected, I had no say in this. I’m surprised the Council has even let me continue to be your instructor. ”
“As Bitsy would say, this is some bullshit,” Alyssa mutters.
“Indeed, it is, Miss O’Neill. Indeed, it is.”
“We’ve got another missing persons report,” Simon mutters, tapping a few keys on his laptop. “Another omega, taken off the streets.”
“Saints,” Cassian mutters darkly. “She’s probably being processed into an omega rehabilitation center as we speak.”
“She was mated,” Simon continues. “Another mated omega they’ve stolen away from her pack under the assumption that she was unmated.”
“Is nothing being done about this?” Ian asks, looking up from his lesson planning.
Cassian sighs. “From what I hear, there are new cases every day. Many packs are pursuing the legal route to free their omegas, but details are scarce, and many omegas seem to have been… misplaced during processing. Packs are taking to the streets not only to protect their omegas, but to free them. There have already been seven attempted attacks on the omega rehabilitation center in Fairhaven. The packs perpetrating these attacks have been imprisoned.”
“That’s terrible,” I murmur.
“We need to get you out of the city,” Cassian says.
“I don’t think you’re safe here. The squads picking up omegas have been seen at the gates to the academy’s campus.
The only things stopping them are Langford’s will and Ian’s old wards.
It doesn’t matter that you have a pack. The squads are taking omegas and asking questions later—if they even do at all. ”
I swallow and nod, immediately thinking of Ellie. “Where will we go?”
“My parents’ estate,” Cassian replies with a grimace.
There hasn’t been any news about the hostages, and I know it scares him every day.
“It’s warded just as well as the pack house and has the added benefit of armed guards patrolling the premises.
Juniper, I hate this, but I don’t want you anywhere but my family’s house, on campus and in the castle. ”
“I understand,” I say quietly. “But we need to bring Ellie and Melissa. Jace too.”
“That won’t be easy,” Simon huffs, looking up from his laptop where he has several missing persons reports open. “Ellie barely leaves Bitsy’s cottage as it is. Even I can’t get through to her.”
I shake my head. “No. It’ll be easier than you think. She’ll be scared. Saints know I am. She loves Bitsy, but she still has instincts for self-preservation. Trust me, she’ll come.”
Ellie does indeed join us at the Leclerc estate accompanied by Jace, her mother joining us only a day later. She drifts around the estate like a ghost, her eyes puffy from crying, entirely inconsolable. She does nothing but stay in her nest and go to classes.
I’m not much better. I wander the empty halls in a daze.
The estate feels empty without Bethany and her mates, and I’m pierced with guilt that they’re still trapped in the consortium while I’m free.
If they’re even still alive. It’s been long enough that we’re all beginning to have our doubts, though none of us voice them.
We talk of feeble rescue attempts, but we know we don’t have the numbers.
We live in guilt and terror, and yet, Cassian has been strong for me to the point of neglecting himself.
Saints, I’ve been a terrible mate to him.
He’s done so much for all of us, and I haven’t been an attentive mate.
He even hired one of Douglas’ oncologist colleagues to come to take care of Jeanie in his father’s absence.
The other omega is always guarded, and when Marcus expressed his sincere gratitude, all Cassian did was wave it off, telling Marcus that he’s one of us.
My mate has been so kind, so strong. But still so closed off to me and Simon.
I pause in my wanderings and peek into his father’s study where he’s taken to reading the textbooks for the classes he didn’t get to attend.
If not buried in one of the textbooks, he’s nose deep in some of his father’s old law books, digging through them to find anything that will let us fight the Council’s newest rulings.
“Cass?” I say gently. “Will you meet me in my nest?”
He looks up from his book. “Of course, Junes. Is something the matter?”
Everything is the matter right now, but I shake my head. “No, I’m fine.” I send him some assurance down our bond and cross the room to press a kiss to his temple. “I promise. You go ahead. I’ve got a hacker to track down first,” I say with a smile.
I find Simon where I usually find him: in the library hunched over his laptop.
There have been ten more missing persons reports in the last day, and five altercations in the streets when the armed squads stole omegas away from their packs.
Even with proof that they were mated, the omegas were still taken off the streets.
“Simon?” I drift into the room as he looks up from his laptop. “Cass needs us. Saints know he’d never say so, but he does. Will you come to my nest?”
Simon snaps his laptop shut. “You’re right. I’ve been so focused I’ve barely felt him through our bonds lately.”
“He’s been locking my bond with him down. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s doing the same with yours.”
Simon shakes his head with a frown. “Damn it, Cass. Yes, let’s go.”