“I think you were about three words from becoming that Alpha’s lavish.”
She glares at me from beneath her lashes. “And what does that matter to you? You chose how you wanted to spend your rut.Alone. Which means I’m free to do what I want.”
I want to break something. I want tokillsomeone. I want to rip that Alpha apart with my bare hands. I pace up and down the street, wishing I knew why I went in there and interrupted Zenevieve when it’s none of my business what she does.
“I saw a Beta leave Oren’s room with the most beautiful smile on her face,” Zenevieve tells me. “She wasn’t throwing up blood. She wasn’t feeling as miserable as I feel now. Stop making me feel like I’m dirty or wrong for wanting to do what every other Beta my age and younger already does.” Her voice rises until she ends on an angry shriek.
I push both my hands through my hair and grip my head. I’m making Zenevieve miserable. Why am I doing this? Am I cursed?
“I think I should move out,” she says brokenly.
I seize her by her shoulders. “Please don’t.”
“Then give me a reason to stay.”
“Because we’re family. I thought we were happy. I care about you more than anyone else in the world.” Desperate words pour from my lips. I say anything and everything I can that’s the wholehearted truth. “But I can’t turn you into a lavish.”
She reaches up and cups my jaw. Squeezes my shoulders. Entreats me with her eyes. “A Beta isn’t a lavish if she’s mated.”
Mate her. If only I could.
Her nails dig deeper into my shoulders the longer I’m silent. Finally, when she realizes I’m not going to say anything, Zenevieve lets go of me. Her hands fall dejectedly to her sides. I keep my eyes lowered so I don’t have to see how much I’m hurting her. Slowly, she turns and walks away from me.
“We’ll talk when my rut is over,” I call after her, but she doesn’t answer.
I barely sleep during my ruts at the best of times, but for three days, I pace up and down my room in the ruthouse with no rest. I picture Zenevieve with Oren as he fucks her over and over, the images tormenting me for hours on end. But she’s smiling throughout. She’s happy. I took that happiness from her, and I can’t give her anything to replace that joy. I’m making her suffer as much as the gods are making me suffer, and for no good reason except that I am too jealous and possessive of her to let her go.
Three days later, I leave the ruthouse feeling exhausted, guilty, and more miserable than ever, but I’m looking forward to getting home. Why am I so eager? Because Zenevieve is always there to greet me after my ruts, pressing a cup of cool water into my hand and telling me she’s laid out fresh clothes on my bed.There’s usually the smell of something delicious to eat in the air, and she catches me up on any developments within the flare. Sometimes she brushes my tangled, sweaty hair. Often she hugs my aching body. I crave the comfort she brings me.
Our home is jarringly silent and dark when I enter. I stand in the doorway for several tense breaths, listening as hard as I can for the sound of her moving around in the next room. For her footsteps on the stone floor.
Nothing.
I run to her bedroom door and wrench it open. The mattress has been stripped of bedding and the empty wardrobe stands open. All of Zenevieve’s little knickknacks are gone from the windowsill, and Minta’s bag of treats is missing.
I stare at the space she’s left behind, and my heart thumps desolately in my chest. Zenevieve did the only thing she could do after I couldn’t give her what she needed. I said I didn’t want her, and so she’s gone.
16
Zenevieve
“Zenevieve. Zenevieve? Can you move?”
“Oh—sorry.” I’m sitting on my bunk stretching my legs, and I’m momentarily blocking what little space there is in the barracks. I shift my feet back so the woman can pass.
I’ve been living in the dragonrider barracks for a year, but I still haven’t shaken the feeling that I’m always in the way.
“Thanks.” Taura gives me a closed-lip, sarcastic smile as she heads for her own bunk. She has dark green hair with an iridescent sheen and golden eyes, and she’s a Beta like me. Taura, along with some of the other dragonriders in the barracks, don’t think I belong here. I’m from a wealthy family. I’m the dragonmaster’s former ward. I’m not one of them.One of themmeans being an ordinary dragonrider who arrived in Lenhale with nothing but a wish to ride a dragon.
But what do I really have that they don’t? Nothing. My parents left their worldly goods to my brothers, and though Ihave no money, I’m too embarrassed to write and ask them for any. My brothers might pry too deeply into why I suddenly left Stesha’s home, and I haven’t breathed a word about that to anyone.
I begged to be an Alpha’s mate, and he refused. It’s mortifying. No one begs an Alpha. Everyone knows that if an Alpha wants you, he’ll claim you himself.
Apart from a few cold shoulders from some of the dragonriders, life in the barracks isn’t so bad. I’ve been given a bunkbed, an allowance, and all the time in the world to spend with Minta. I’m respected most places I go in the city because dragonriders are held in high esteem. I prefer the company of dragonriders to living alone, which I’ve never done before. I hate the thought of coming home to an empty house.
This past year without Stesha has been hard. I’ve not technically beenwithoutStesha, because I see him every day, but he’s no longer Stesha to me. He’s the dragonmaster. We treat each other with distant, professional courtesy, and if someone asks why I’m no longer living with him, I tell them, “The dragonmaster’s duty to my father only lasted until my eighteenth birthday. It was time for me to move on.”
Most people seem to accept that. If anyone doesn’t, I don’t care. I’m certainly not telling anyone that I offered my heart to Stesha, and he didn’t want it.
