Page 84 of Want It All

I could make it for myself.

Byron had left me that night – leftus– but leaving didn’t mean he had tostaygone. It just meant he needed time. I could check in, make sure he knew that he was wanted, that we’d be there when he was ready.

He might not come back, I knew, pausing on the main staircase. I might get rejected once more. The pack I’d come to want so badly might never be anything but a dream. The thought wasn’t a nice one, but there was zero doubt in my mind that the payoff would be worth the risk.

Hewas worth the risk.

Steeling myself, I walked to his room.

I knocked on his door. There was no answer, so I knocked again. When nothing came but silence, I called his name.

‘Rose?’

I spun to see Alessia poke her head out of a door down the hall. ‘Oh, hey,’ I said sheepishly.

Her lips twitched. ‘He was going out as I was coming back from dinner,’ she told me. ‘He said he was going for a walk.’

‘Thanks, Alessia,’ I said, grateful, and made my way back down the stairs.

It hadn’t really helped. I now knew the one place hewasn’t, but there were a thousand places hecouldbe.

There was one place he’d talked about, though; one place I knew he went often.

It was a stupid time of day to be outside. The sun was beginning to set, which meant the local snake population would be most active. The eucalypts bordering the Banksia gardens cast long shadows on the ground as I stomped my way down a sandy path, careful to make as much noise as I possibly could. The sky was just starting to darken, lit at the horizon with shades of orange and pink.

With every step, I rehearsed what I would say. When I saw him, however, sitting on the grass near the cliffs and looking outto sea, I forgot every single sentence I’d planned – and possibly every word I’d ever known.

He didn’t notice me at first. The breeze was blowing towards us, so I was almost on him before he spun around at the sound of my feet. He’d taken a blanket with him, thick and comfortable-looking, a patchwork of black and blue. His eyes widened at the sight of me, and he went statue-still, the kind of stillness that usually preceded an animal springing to its feet and bolting at speed.

‘I watched the videos,’ I blurted.

He stared at me. He didn’t look well; his skin was paler than usual, and there were shadows beneath his eyes.

‘And I read the articles,’ I added.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded very much likeTristan fucking Grace, then turned his gaze back to the ocean.

The view was breathtaking. I hadn’t been out here before; I’d been too wary to come by myself, and I hadn’t thought to ask someone else to join me. I’d kept myself shut inside, a habit since my designation had been revealed, and now I knew what I’d been missing.

The ocean stretched before us all the way to the horizon. The water was restless, broken by peaks of white and glints of the late afternoon light. The relentless rumble of the waves filled my ears, so loud I almost didn’t hear when Byron spoke.

‘Which videos?’

‘All of them.’

‘And which articles?’

‘The same.’ I paused, and sank down onto the blanket, an arm’s length away from him. I could feel his heat regardless. ‘Along with all the legal transcripts, your admission papers for the Alpha Retreat, your journals, your discharge papers, and your psychology reports.’

‘That’s … quite an invasion of privacy.’ His tone was half-impressed, half-annoyed. ‘I can’t believe Tristan found all that.’

‘There was more,’ I said honestly. ‘I can safely say that if it exists, Tristan has it. He hadn’t planned to share it, I think. Even Sebastian hadn’t seen it. Not until –’

‘Not until I walked out.’

I didn’t answer.

He shifted and plucked at a handful of grass before him. ‘Why are you here, Rose?’