Page 202 of A University of Betrayal

“It’s not hard to upset a Rolanow.”

“You almost violated the Code!” I continued.

Alarik knew as well as I did that part of the Code was peace between two packs. Only he didn’t really care about the Code.

“Trust me, Emely,” he looked at me with a serious expression. “If I had bonded with her, I would have been much more likely to break the Code. I would have gone to Russia, far away from the place I used to call home and far too far away from the Vanderwood.”

Usually, it was the other way around. Women followed their husbands to their packs, their homes.

“She would have stayed here,” I said, but quickly realized that these words supported the issue Tania had spoken about.

Submitting to the Code as a woman and not benefiting from it, at least among the Rolanows.

I took a deep breath.

My father would never marry me off against my will.

“I wouldn’t have wanted that.”

I saw him bite his lower lip in annoyance and clutch the railing as if he were on board of the sinking Titanic.

I didn’t know what to respond. He showed sympathy for Tania, so it must have been a very private subject and I had somehow slipped into it.How clumsy of me.

“In retrospect, it was better that way. We wouldn’t have been a good match.” He laughed, and it had a bitter edge to it before it turned to lightness. “We were both too immature, we didn’t know what love was.” That bitter smile again.

I struggled to imagine how Alarik had studied back then and how he and Tania had been supposed to form a bond. And then I wondered what he had been like back then. Like Nash? Hardly... But not like me, either. We were fundamentally different. Nevertheless, we got on well.

The memory of the letter to the Quatura flared up in my mind, ready to burn down my old image of Alarik.

He wasn’t who I had thought he was. What if he had saidnoto Tania because there had been someone he would have saidyesto? Someone he should never have desired?

Shocked, I stared at my uncle.

“I’m sorry, Emely. You look a mess. I told your father that you were too young for this nonsense and that he should have at least waited until after graduation.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He really thought it was too much for me?For me?Me, who had done so much for the pack all these years? Of course, it was more than usual, a new level. But I was strong enough to manage it. I would prove to them all that I was the perfect daughter of the Alpha.

I swallowed.

The alpha’s daughter, the future alpha’s sister and the future wife of the...

“Are you okay?”

For a moment I was tempted to sayno, to open up to him, but when it came to Alarik, I knew he would be able to convince me, and that was the last thing I could let happen right now.

I nodded slowly and forced myself to smile. “Yeah, just something’s been bothering me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t want to talk to your favorite family member about it?”

My jaw dropped. “You...”

He grinned broadly. “Come on, what’s keeping my little niece busy.”

I sighed, because I hated it when he called me that. And he knew it.

“Were you like that back then?”