“Goodbye,” I tell Mom whose focus has now returned.
She watches me wheel my suitcase toward the hallway, then startles me by crossing the room and wrapping me in her arms. The hug is short and tense, and I can scarcely believe it’s happened at all.
“One day you’ll understand why I handled things the way I did. Thank me, even,” she says, then sighs and reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. “Until then, take care of yourself, Violet.”
I gape at her for a moment. How could I ever thank her for this mess I’ve become? I’m not even twenty years old, and already my life is over. I was supposed to be the perfect princess, pampered and worshipped, mated off in a big society event that would be talked about for months to come.
Instead I’m slinking off to the frigid north without even a day’s notice. I’m not just a secret. I’m a disgrace.
And even more than my own rushed decisions and bad luck, I have my mother to thank for it.
“Are you ready?” Alpha Miles asks as I finish dragging my overstuffed suitcase down the stairs.
I nod, and he rushes over to relieve me of my burden.
“I’ll send the rest of your things by mail,” Mom says as she sees us to the door with an enormous grin.
I almost tell her not to bother, but it’s easier to play along. She has no idea that once this door closes between us, she’ll never see me again.
I do though, which means now I’m the one smiling as the alpha guides me to the waiting town car.
The driver takes my suitcase and stows it away in the trunk while Miles holds the door open and gestures for me to get inside.
He slides in after me but doesn’t say anything—not until the driver takes his place and the town car roars to life.
“So,” Miles says, raising his thick, brown brows as he regards me. “Care to tell me what that was all about?”
My stomach churns with a fresh wave of anxiety. I should have expected this, should have come up with an explanation while I was packing up my belongings. I’ve never done well when put on the spot. I prefer to go in with a plan, but I just felt so relieved to be getting away that I failed to focus on what came next.
At this point, it’s simply easier to tell the truth. Or at least part of it. I can’t go too far into the past and I can’t divulge my ultimate plan for the future, or Miles will drop me right back off at my mother’s door.
Now that I’m creating distance from the physical place of my trauma, does that mean my inside will start to heal too? God, I hope so.
I keep my eyes on my lap while I mutter my explanation. “My mother isn’t a nice person,” I say with a shrug. “If you didn’t make an offer, she was going to send me to the only other pack who made one. And I really didn’t want to go anywhere with them.”
He nods his understanding and pushes a hand through his choppy blond tresses. “Damn. I figured it was something like that. You’re safe now, Violet. From your mother. From that other pack. From everything. I know we only just met, but I take my commitment to you very seriously.” His green eyes bore into mine, and this vision of him overlaps with one in my memories, a memory I’ve been clinging to for the past year and a half.
It’s as if I’m transported back to my dorm room. Lying on the floor as another man holds me in his arms and stares down at me with vivid green eyes.
Duncan.
I hardly knew him then, but he was kind to me. And he helped me when I needed him.
But he never found out what happened next, why I was summarily withdrawn from school and sent back home.
He doesn’t know we created new life together.
Neither of us thought an omega-omega pairing could bear fruit, that my belly would swell with his seed. Only an alpha can impregnate an omega. That’s what we all thought.
And yet…
I wrap my arms around myself and try not to cry, not to smile, not to show any emotion at all—even though they’re all creeping up on me at once. I can’t think about Duncan. We hardly knew each other despite doing this huge thing together. I’ll always cherish my memories of him. Perhaps that’s why omegas are meant to remain untouched until they’re mated off. We get too attached, have a hard time moving on.
Duncan and I were never in love, and yet…
I’ll never forget those eyes, how I looked at him and knew I could trust him to take care of me.
It’s the same feeling I get now as Miles studies me.