I don’t wait to hear Lucian’s answer. He’ll follow like he always does. I wasn’t lying to him. There’s no time to rest when I have a world to make safe for my mate.
Chapter
Forty-Eight
CORDELIA
When I wake up in the morning I’m alone. I open my eyes and the bed feels as big as a football field without Thorne in it. I roll onto my side and listen just to be sure he’s not in the other room but there’s nothing. I sigh and sit up. The house feels cold and quiet now without him which sucks. Before last night it felt cozy and all mine, a little refuge where I was safe but now with blankets that smell like Thorne and the memory of his chest against my check even my small cottage feels too big.
I wrap the blanket I’m under around my shoulders and stand. Thorne’s scent wraps around me and it’s not so bad to leave the bed so long as I’m carrying his scent with me. I go about my business getting ready because I did promise Clover and Piper that I would have breakfast with them today. The entire time I get ready I’m replaying my night with Thorne in my head. Every word, every look, the fact that I threw myself in his arms for the second time and gods, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Keiran was skulking around I would have been happy to lethim take me right there in front of my cottage. I blush when I open the door and see the aforementioned front yard.
What a time this place would have had last night under better circumstances.
I set off towards the mess hall with a head full of Thorne fantasies. I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t even see Cassidy or the girls standing with her by the fountain. I might have walked right into breakfast without ever realizing they were there except for the fact that Cassidy says, “Morning, Stray.”
Stray.
I stop dead in my tracks and look at her. She’s pissed, which suits me because I’m no longer verging on horny, I’m pissed too.
“What did I tell you about talking to me like that?” I snap.
The girls behind her fall back a step and look at Cassidy for reassurance. The beta doesn’t look at them and I’ll give her credit, she doesn’t look bothered at all. She looks cool as a cucumber. I’m sure she would be intimidating to another omega but I was raised in Frostclaw. Not much scares me, especially not a beta with stick skinny arms. She wouldn’t last a day in Frostclaw.
“You know what? I just can’t remember. It must not have been very important. Why don’t you refresh my memory?”
I open my mouth to do just that but my wolf does the talking. A growl comes out of me so loud and deep that everyone in the square hears it and goes silent. I’m pretty sure everyone in the mess hall hears it too.
That does the trick in getting Cassidy’s attention. “What the fuck?” She points at me. “What the fuck are you? You’re a freak.”
“I’ve heard that one before. Be more creative. Remember what I said about basic because I hate to tell you that it’s happening again.”
Cassidy comes forward a step. “You bitch. You think I’m going to let a mutt like you get her claws in Thorne? That alpha is mine.”
“Didn’t see your name written on him anywhere,” I tell her.
“Look harder.”
We’re nose to nose now, each of us advanced while we traded verbal jabs. If I wanted to I could punch Cassidy. My hand itches to do it but the thought scares me. I’m not a violent person, don’t have a violent wolf….at least, I thought I didn’t. I’m not so sure now with the way she’s snarling and wanting to handle this. If I let her out she’s going to rip Cassidy’s head off. I don’t even have to see her shift to know that Cassidy’s wolf isn’t anything special. The confirmation is there in the slight tinge of fear I get off her.
“I might be a freak but you’re the one who’s scared,” I tell her.
She swallows hard and looks me up and down. “That’s because you’re a bad omen. Bad luck. Cursed. You should have never come back here. The only thing you’re going to bring down on this pack is ruin and war. You think I didn’t see your mate last night?”
Her words hit me harder than the punch I just wanted to throw. I stumble back from her. Cassidy’s words echo the parade of accusations I had hurled at me in Frostclaw. Bad omen. Bad luck. Cursed. Not even here can I escape it. And Keiran? How did she know he was here last night?
“Everyone knows Thorne just feels sorry for you,” one of Cassidy’s friends tells me. She’s dark-haired and I’ve seen her before. On the first morning when I was walking into town standing with her mother.
Another one of her friends steps up and points at me. “Thorne belongs with Cassidy. He’s her mate.”
“You don’t belong here,” another voice chimes in.
Time shifts and it’s hard to remember where I am with Cassidy’s friends saying these things. I feel dizzy.
“You’re going to understand what I have with Thorne is real. We’re mates. It was always going to be me with him. You’ll see. Everyone is going to see that when he gets back from patrol.”
I take another step back. The here and now is too blurry for me to feel steady. Cassidy crosses her arms with a smug smile. She knows she’s won this round. I hate it. I hate feeling like I’m back in Frostclaw.
“You’re lying.” She has to be. There’s no way what she’s saying is true.
