Page 42

Della

I fake a yawn as I walk into the kitchen the next morning.

Vincent, fully dressed, sips coffee from a white mug. “Morning!”

He nods. “You look like you had a good sleep.”

I take a seat on my regular stool. “Levi put a movie on, and it was so boring, it knocked me right out.”

When Levi suggested I lie down, I didn’t think I would sleep.

One moment, I was watching an old black-and-white cowboy movie with the volume turned down low.

The next, the soft murmur of male voices woke me.

Levi was no longer on the couch with me, and the voices were so secretive that it was clear they were hiding something from me.

Hurt that they were keeping me in the dark despite Vincent asking for my help to hunt down Aly’s killer, I eavesdropped on their conversation, all while making my own plans.

They had their reasons for being in Haven Academy. I had my own. If they want to push me out, that’s fine. They can do their thing. I’ll do my own.

Levi and Xavier come down dressed in jeans and T-shirts. I’m still in my pajamas, having padded from the living room to the kitchen.

Levi smiles at me, and Xavier playfully ruffles my hair.

As I drink my juice and eat the toast with peanut butter and jelly that Vincent sets down in front of me, I watch them covertly. “So, what happened last night? Did you find out anything?”

I heard all about their plan to keep me in the dark, but it will look suspicious if I don’t ask. I’m nosy. Vincent knows that better than most.

What will he tell me? The truth? Lie?

“Another dead end,” Vincent says, looking me in the eye, proving politicians are truly gifted liars.

I appreciate them wanting to keep me safe, but there’s no reason to lie about it. I’m not a child.

“You didn’t have to drive too far, though?” I try to sound concerned when, in reality, it’s taking everything not to fling my juice in his face.

We were supposed to be a team . I was supposed to help them track down Aly’s killer, and he was going to help me find the three alphas who hurt me.

What happened to that team between yesterday and today?

Why are they suddenly shutting me out?

“You know how it is,” Xavier says evasively.

Yeah, I know exactly how it is.

He’s still a lying prick, but I don’t hate him as much as I hate Vincent right now because he, at least, did not look me in the eye as he lied to me.

“Any plans for today?” Vincent asks.

He’s setting things in motion to ditch me. Yeah, well, no need.

“I was thinking about seeing my sister,” I say.

And I swear his shoulders relax. “That sounds like a good idea. You can spend time with your sister.”

I bet you can’t fucking wait to get rid of me.

I smile, injecting a hint of guilt into it. “Yeah. I’ve not spent as much time with her as I should have. Can I borrow a phone and ask her to come pick me up?”

“I can give you a lift if you want?” Vincent offers.

My molars grind together. I order myself to stop before he hears my mounting rage. “No need. Pack Ashe lives miles away from here, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Everleigh will probably push me to stay the night.”

Levi is watching me, light green eyes narrowed, as if he suspects I’m up to something.

He has good instincts. He should listen to them because they are not ditching me. I am ditching them .

I put my unfinished toast on my plate, drain the juice from my glass, and get up. “I might as well get packed up to leave.”

They all freeze.

“ Leave ?” Xavier says slowly.

“Well, yeah.” I glance at them. “I was hardly going to stay here forever, was I?”

A strange silence fills the room.

I continue, “It’s time I got back to my normal life, and you got back to yours.”

Again, no one responds.

“The phone?” I ask Vincent, holding my hand out for it.

“Here.” Levi pulls his phone out of his back pocket and reluctantly offers it to me. “You can use mine. But you don’t?—”

I take the phone with a false smile. “Thanks.”

Vincent puts his mug down and moves to hand me something from his pocket. “I have?—”

“No thanks,” I cut him off with a serene smile. “You’ve been more than generous.”

In the entryway, I sit on the bottom step to call Everleigh and ask if she can pick me up.

“Did something happen?” she asks.

I glance at the kitchen. There hasn’t been a whisper of a sound since I left it. “Nothing. Just realized it was time to leave. How quickly can you get me?”

She’s silent for a beat. My tone was carefree and casual, but Everleigh is my big sister; she knows when something is up. She always has.

“Give me thirty minutes. Do you mind if?—”

“I don’t mind which alpha you bring, Ever.” Wherever she goes, one of her alphas is never far away. “Wait, were you in the middle of?—”

“On my way." She quickly hangs up, but not before I catch the sound of male laughter in the background.

I scrub out the mental image of my sister having sex with her alphas. I love her to death, but that is not something I want to be thinking about.

Three alphas watch me as I walk back into the kitchen. None of them has moved.

“Here.” I hand Levi his phone back and turn to walk out.

His hand circles my wrist, halting me. “Della?” His voice is soft.

I force myself to meet his gaze, feeling oddly sad. “Yeah?”

Just tell me what you’re doing. This won’t hurt so fucking much if you involved me.

He kisses my cheek. “Stay safe with your sister, okay?”

My eyes prick with tears. “Sure.” My smile doesn’t feel the least bit real.

I walk upstairs and quickly throw the clothes that Everleigh brought me into a bag before showering and getting dressed.

I leave all the clothes that Vincent brought me behind.

I don’t want a new wardrobe from him.

Everleigh arrives with Kylian to pick me up.

He’s my favorite of her mates because he was the one who put a bullet in my sister’s abusive former mate’s head. If anyone deserved to be six feet under, it was Lawrence-Fucking-Wentworth.

“You’re quiet,” Everleigh says in the car on our way to their house. “You’re never quiet. What’s wrong?”

Everything.

Vincent tried to hand me a business card as I left, the number for a therapist. I smiled brightly, ignoring him and the card. Xavier moved to hug me, but I would have punched him if he did.

Or cried.

Probably cried.

I rushed past all of them and slid into the back of Kylian’s car, but I felt them watching from the door as Kylian drove me away. I didn’t look back.

“Della?” Everleigh asks softly.

I pull my gaze from the city view outside my window. It’s still early, and there are barely any cars on the road. “Do you still have the Cinderella dress?”

Vincent bought me more clothes than I would have ever needed, and I left them all behind. They don’t want me, and I don’t want their clothes.

The Cinderella dress is what she wore when she decided to fight for her pack and tell them she loved them.

My reason for the dress isn’t to find love with a pack of alphas. It’s to save the omegas I should have been back at Haven Academy saving all along.

She stares at me like I lost my mind. “What are you talking about?”

“The Cinderella dress. I need it.”

She presses her hand against my forehead.

I slap it away. “Stop that. I’m not sick. I have a date and I need a fancy dress.”

She frowns, concerned. “Della, you were abducted. Should you really be dating?”

“I refuse to live in the past, Ever. It’s time to move on.”

“You need time to heal.”

“I need to do something. It’s either hunting those alphas who hurt me or dating.”

“I got rid of the dress,” Everleigh says, as I’d expected, given the choice I just gave her. “But I have a couple of others you could borrow. You’re shorter, so they might not work.”

Kylian’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “We can hit the shops if you want. My treat.”

Everleigh turns to face Kylian. “Shopping can wait. She still hasn’t told us what she was doing at Haven Academy.”

Yeah. I’d hoped Everleigh would forget about that.

Before I went AWOL, I bought out a fragrance store's cherry and praline perfume. I know my sister. She loves me. I love her too, so I get why she wants to look out for me. But no one at Haven Academy is looking out for the omegas there. And River… I just disappeared. She’d be worried.

“It’s important.” I smile at Everleigh. “My Cinderella moment.”

Except, I won’t be looking for a prince at the end-of-year ball. I’ll be stopping omegas from winding up with frogs instead of the princes they deserve.

“I know a place,” Kylian says.

Everleigh gives him a warning look. “No going crazy in the store.”

He winks at her. “ Me ?”