Page 23

ELIAS

I glanced nervously at my phone. It was a quarter to eight and Marlowe was asleep in my arms, my knot still deep inside her. Archer had put a bag of clothes together for her so she wouldn’t have to waste any time packing, and Nolan was putting some cookies and brownies he’d baked for her in a large container.

I was too afraid to wake her—not just because she looked so peaceful, her face free from the worry of the impending Rite, but also since any movement could re-stimulate my knot and I’d be locked in her for longer. Not that I felt particularly inclined to fall in line with the Conclave’s pathetic attempts to take our omega away from us, but Linda was doing us a huge favor in keeping Marlowe safe from those assholes until this whole shitshow was over.

The thought of them with their hands all over her made me too angry for words, and I pulled Marlowe tightly into my chest. We’d knotted from behind and now laid on our sides, spooning on the large bed I’d claimed as my own in her father’s house.

I fought the impulse to just say “fuck it”

and skip town with her. How long would it take the Conclave to know we were missing? We could be hidden away in a beach house in Costa Rica by then.

Marlowe’s eyelids fluttered open, and her voice cracked with exhaustion as she spoke. “Is it time to go?”

I kissed the top of her head.

Never.

“We have a few more minutes.”

She sighed and went back to sleep, nestling back into my chest. Soft light filtered in through the windows, illuminating her long eyelashes and pale cheeks. I lifted myself up slightly on my elbow and leaned over her, counting each one of her freckles.

“Twenty-three,”

I whispered. Same as there had been in Chicago and San Francisco.

The only thing different on her skin was the new bond mark from Julian—a still-healing, crescent-shaped scar on her ankle.

A deep foreboding took root in my gut, souring the moment I wanted to cement in my memory. Why did it feel like we were constantly on the verge of losing Marlowe? As though the Moon had let us borrow her for longer than she’d intended, and was finally taking her away. Like she had been too good for us from the beginning, and we should have known she’d never be ours forever.

Especially not with Nolan making every wrong decision possible.

I bit back my growl so as not to wake or scare her. She told me she’d forgiven him, and logically, I knew I would’ve made the same initial decision he had in contacting the Conclave to intervene with the vampyrs on our behalf. That had been the right call.

At least it would have been, if Marlowe weren’t the only omega left in the world, a prize too tempting for a pack of alphas with egos the size of Lake Michigan.

My knot had finally shrunk enough that I could pull out, and the loss of her warmth on my cock was immediate and soul-crushing. She turned around so we could face each other, nuzzling her face into my neck, breathing me in deeply.

The alarm on my phone told me we had five minutes left.

“Fuck,”

I whispered. I hated this so much. I nudged her gently. “Hey California, you need to get dressed.”

Archer had left an outfit for her outside my door, and it took every ounce of my will power to get out of bed to grab it.

She gave me a sleepy, encouraging smile as I slipped the UW-Madison sweatshirt over her head and kissed her on the nose. “It’s just for a few days,” she said.

She spoke with the same tone she’d used with Cam before we’d left for San Francisco. Placating me, like this was just a trip, and not my worst nightmare realized.

Archer had thoughtfully left a brush with her clothes as well, and I picked it up to run through her hair in an attempt to tame the wild bed head she’d been left with after a night with all of us.

“Just a few days,”

I repeated, helping her up once I was finished.

She gave me a kiss on the cheek and scurried into the bathroom to brush her teeth, just as Linda’s car pulled into the driveway.

My heart shattered into smaller and smaller pieces with each step we took down the stairs, and I joined the rest of the pack in line by the door so she could give each of us a hug. The smile on her face was frozen in place, the glistening in her eyes betraying her feigned optimism.

“It’s going to be alright,”

she whispered in my ear. “Support Julian however you can, okay? He needs to feel like you believe in him.”

“I will. I do.”

As much as I hadn’t gotten a chance to know the pup that well yet, he’d risked his neck to save Marlowe before she was even his. Now that he knew exactly what was on the line, I was sure he had the skill and the motivation to bring her back home for us.

We stood outside and watched as she got in the alpha female’s car, waving until we were no longer in sight.

I rubbed my hand down my face, the stubble on my cheeks and chin scratching my palm. Then I turned towards Nolan and punched him in the gut.

The house had taken on the quality of an airport lounge from hell. We were stuck with nowhere to go, time ceasing to have any meeting aside from when the Rite would finally commence. Until then, I was too exhausted to do anything productive, yet too wired to sleep.

After taking a shower, I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat at the table. All I could do was drink and stare into space.

Three days. How the hell could we survive three days without her, knowing what might happen when Julian finally met Eamon Frost in the ring?

“Can we finally talk about what I found?”

Archer called through the halls, trying to get everyone’s attention.

Nolan went straight to the table and sat obediently, still eating too much crow to cop an attitude with any of us.

Camden scoffed, dropping himself loudly into the nearest chair. “By all means, Professor.”

Archer gave him a pointed look, and waited for Julian to be seated. “Hey, are you hungry?” he asked.

Julian shook his head. “Not right now. I’ll eat after a nap and then head to the gym. Sorry about cutting you off earlier, I…”

Archer held out his hand to stop him. “Don’t worry, I get it. Besides, if any of us deserve to be a little selfish right now, it’s you.”

I raised my bottle to him, perhaps with a bit too much snark, and took a long swig. Cam shot me a dirty look and growled.

Shit, I was already going against Marlowe’s last request. I averted my gaze and put the bottle on the table.

Archer cleared his throat and began. “As I was trying to tell you all earlier, I’ve discovered a giant lie about the Great War—we weren’t against the vampyrs.”

We all sat up a little straighter, and Julian’s head tilted slightly in confusion.

“The vampyrs were fighting with us.”

Cam scoffed. “Those bloodsuckers were on our side? I call bullshit.”

Archer took out the journal he’d shown us last night, opening to a page and reading out loud. “Francis and I took advantage of our leave to spend a spell in Sedona itself. Elizabeth, my darling omega, eagerly awaited my return with the rest of the pack, so I was there simply to drink and unwind. Yet poor Francis had gone without blood for over a week. I lent him my assistance in securing the company of a charming young lady, diverting her companion so that the two might find a private room for the evening. It was imperative for him to be at full strength should the fae breach the veil once more.”

“Hold on, you’re saying we were fighting fae?”

I asked. “Fae. Like, little magic creatures with wings? And you’re basing this off some random journal you found at a college library? Versus how much written and oral evidence we have to the contrary?”

“Marlowe’s brother said we were a type of fae.”

I turned towards Julian, and his cheeks reddened a bit from speaking up, but he slowly continued. “I mean… it kind of makes sense. Why do shifters and vamps even exist in this world? How can we do shit like transform into wolves or fly if not because of magic?”

He paused, looking around the table. “Right?”

Archer nodded and then looked at me. “Elias, I told you about the results of the Luminis I found in your and Marlowe’s blood. It contains compounds not of this Earth. There’s no scientific explanation for it.”

I picked up my beer again, inspecting the label as I thought. I could see the pieces laid out in front of me, but the whole picture Archer was describing was just too fantastical to believe.

Thankfully Nolan, the piece of shit, was on my side.

“Look, it’s a really compelling story, but what about the ‘whys’—why we joined together to fight the fae, why the fae were attacking us in the first place, and why both of our communities decided to lie about it. I mean, how is that even possible? The last shifters who fought in the Great War died maybe twenty years ago or so. You’re telling me not one of them ever let it slip on their deathbeds that the narrative had been false this whole time?”

I pointed towards him with my beer. “All excellent points.”

I took another swig and then put down the bottle. “Come on, Archer, you’re supposed to be the smart one, here.”

He growled. “Then why is the same prophecy we found on Marlowe’s photograph referenced in here?”

Archer turned to the page and showed me, pointing to a passage aggressively. “This male goes on at length about how the fae had been raiding shifter communities looking for boy-girl twins, about how the vampyrs joined us because the fae were also trying to eradicate them, purely out of hate for their kind.”

Cam chuckled. “Well, can’t really blame them, there.”

Archer slammed his hand down in frustration. He rarely got that angry, and it was almost funny to watch our calm professor get so worked up. At least it was a diversion from how shitty I was feeling. “This is serious! When,”

he emphasized, looking at Julian, “…we win the Rite, we need to be ready to face the next challenge. So while Julian is busy, the rest of us should be preparing ourselves for…”

“Tinker Bell!”

I yelled, laughing while Archer bared his teeth. Cam’s mouth quirked up for a moment, but everyone else remained uncomfortably silent.

Whatever.

“And what about her scent, hm? You agreed back in Chicago that her scent is especially powerful. I saw a human man fall under her spell—have you ever heard of that happening before?”

I swallowed glumly, remembering what Marlowe had told me a few days ago about so many males picking up on her scent, as though she were their match.

Camden rubbed the bridge of his nose, grunting in frustration. “Look, Archer, if you want to pursue this, go ahead. I don’t know what the hell to think of it, but right now, I can only concentrate on the Rite and making sure Julian is ready. Besides, we should probably wait for Marlowe, anyway. I’m sure she wants to be a part of this discussion.”

“She already believes me,”

he replied flatly. “We discussed it during our time together.”

“Oh Moon,”

I laughed. Yeah, I was being shitty, but I was in pain and I wanted to drag everyone down with me. “I love you, Archer, but that’s the nerdiest shit I’ve ever heard of in my life. Can you imagine, being knotted to the most beautiful, smoking hot omega in existence, and you’re talking about historical research breakthroughs?”

Archer rolled his eyes, like he was about to chastise me for being so crude. “I’m sorry, but some of us don’t like to spend our time with Marlowe hitting her so hard it leaves bruises.”

Welp, maybe instead he’d take the bait and fight back.

The rest of the pack whipped their heads towards me and Cam snarled. “You did what?”

“It was consensual!”

I yelled back. “Spanking, that’s it! She likes it!”

Cam was about to leap over the table when Nolan barked, “That’s enough!”

My chest was heaving, and I narrowed my eyes. The last person I wanted to speak to was Nolan. “What the hell do you have to say, hm?”

“Look,”

he started, pushing his hair out of his face. “I know I have a lot to make up for right now, but can we please keep it together for Marlowe’s sake? Besides, how have you not all realized that she is different with each of us?”

I grumbled, picking at the label on my beer bottle again. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means she’s an absolute natural as an omega,”

Archer responded for him. “She can easily figure out what we need, and if or how she wants to provide that for us. With Cam it’s all PDA and sweetness, with you she’s a willing sub, with me…”

he stopped, his cheeks turning red.

“You guys read history textbooks?” I joked.

Cam smirked. “They do kinky-ass role play.”

My eyes widened in shock as a brief look of embarrassment crossed Archer’s features. “She told you, huh?”

he chuckled uncomfortably.

Cam shrugged. “She hinted at it, and then I found the costumes.”

“Costumes?”

I asked. “Wait… like sexy costumes? I want that version of Marlowe, too.”

Julian raised his hand. “Yeah, sign me up. Do you think she’d pretend to be a teacher or a librarian? Fuck, that would be so hot.”

Archer blinked, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and sighed. “Okay, I think that’s enough for today. I’m going to bed, while my sheets still smell like her.”

Camden stood up and stretched. “Good call.”

Everyone left the table aside from me and Nolan, but I couldn’t really stand to be in his presence any longer. I chugged the rest of my drink, slipped off my clothes, and shifted as I ran out the back door.