When she packed her garbage bags, I loaded up one of the baskets with books. Jasmine protested, but I only told her that I was heading back anyway and could save her a trip. Honestly, I was probably saving her at least two, given how much stronger I was.
But then again…
“I’ll give you the keys to my car so you can move your stuff all at once,” I said as we headed for the door.
“If you’re going to do that, then you might as well leave the books behind,” she answered.
I grunted, disliking that she saw the logic before me, and set the basket down on the kitchen table. She dropped her bags and grabbed it as the table wobbled, then plunked it onto the floor with a groan. Her cheeks were red as she reached for the bags again.
“We don’t have to take those. We’ll come back for them,” I told her.
Jamine shook her head as she picked one of them up. “I don’t want to waste the trip.”
I picked the others up before she could and pushed open the door. “Come on. The others will be wondering where we are.”
We were quiet at first as we headed back the way we came. Jasmine lagged behind me, and I adjusted my pace so I could walk beside her. It wouldn’t be appropriate for the town to see the alphas being callous toward their wife-to-be. If we wanted to keep harmony in the pack, it was important to present a look of harmony ourselves.
Though speaking of harmony… “Last night, when the Goddess called you, you didn’t seem as surprised as I expected.”
Jasmine shrugged. “I was surprised.”
My mouth pinched. “But you had some idea it was going to happen?”
“Not this, specifically. I never would have guessed that the Goddess would choose me. At the time, I thought it must be a mistake.”
That made sense, considering how the Goddess had to repeat her name. That still didn’t explain what she was saying. “I don’t understand.”
“I thought there was a reason I needed to stay. Now that I’ve had more time to think about it, this must be the reason. So I knew I was needed, but I’d never guessed it was in this way. But now that it’s happened, I think…” Her shoulders hunched inward, and she bit her lip. “I think I might have an idea why the Goddess picked me. You’ve heard about how Penelope has visions, right? She’s psychic and can see glimpses of the future?”
I stared at her, my jaw going slack with shock. “You do that, too?”
“In a sense. I haven’t ever had a vision the same way she’s described. It’s more of whenever I made plans to leave Tyrell, I’d always get this flash of me remaining here. My intuition, I suppose, telling me not to leave. So, I guess this was the reasonwhy it was telling me to stay, and my intuition is the reason the Goddess picked me.”
My mind churned over this new information. I stared at her hard, trying to see anything different about her. She looked the same as she always did. Pretty, but an omega, and one that I didn’t particularly like. She’d always caused trouble, always made things worse for us four who would become alphas.
My brow furrowed as I turned forward again. What exactly had she done to make things worse for us? I recalled my dislike for her, recalled the way Owen used to rant about her, and the way the rest of us agreed with him.
But now, I couldn’t actually think of what she had done.
I shook myself. She was lying about the visions. She’d never shown any signs of having some sort of psychic intuition before. That said, it made sense if that was the reason why the Goddess picked her.
My wolf was oddly quiet in my chest, and I shook my head. “Right. Well, don’t tell any of the others about your gifts.” I barely managed to bite my tongue and not call them ‘supposed gifts.’ “They won’t like it, and I don’t want things to get even more argumentative.”
“Meaning—” Jasmine cut herself off. “Alright. I won’t say anything.”
I stared at her openly as we kept walking, not bothering to watch where I was going. What had she been about to say? It was impossible to read her. It always had been. She always took everything with a blank face. There were times in the past when I had deliberately pushed hard enough that later I regretted my actions, just to try to make her crack.
I supposed that was a pretty big reason for her not to want this. Was that what it was? She’d asked me not to be cruel to her. Just what was she imagining we’d do to her?
Thinking back to some of the things we had done to her in the past, I could imagine. We’d been terrible bullies to her. It didn’t take laying hands on her to make her life miserable—something we had never done, except Owen, and even then, only a few times before any of us had turned seven.
I turned my face back toward the direction we were walking. “I…don’t like where you’ve been living,” I said brusquely, unsure of what else to say.
She peeked at me from the corner of her eye. “You don’t have to live there.”
“None of the pack should be living in those conditions.”
Jasmine stared openly at me now, as though I’d started spouting French poetry. “I don’t understand. I’ve lived like that for years. I’ve applied for other housing. I’ve tried to receive a higher stipend so I could at least fix it up a little. Everything was denied, every time.”
