I sucked on my teeth, biting back the defensive retort that I couldn’t manage everything. Instead, I asked, “Are there other omegas in similar situations?”
“None as bad as mine. Most of them are able to share housing.”
“And you couldn’t?”
Jasmine sighed. “They didn’t want to end up being targeted.”
“By us.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Guilt filled the pit of my stomach, and I wished I could do or say something to apologize. No, I wished I could talk myself into believing it wasn’t my fault. Somehow, our stupid behavior from when we were kids was still hurting people. Who else in the pack was suffering because of us?
“Now that you’re our mate, perhaps you can create some sort of housing initiative. To make sure everyone has a safe place to live,” I said stiffly. “The pack will expect some sort of action from you.”
“I suppose.”
We didn’t say anything else as we got back to the house. The other three were still there, just coming out, as though they were going to start looking for us. Owen caught sight of Jasmine and glared at her, more hotly than I thought necessary.
“There you are,” he snapped. “What the hell have you been doing?”
Chapter 4 - Killian
Owen stormed at Jasmine, his hands in tight fists. I reached out and grabbed his arm, yanking him to a stop.
“Chill out,” I grumbled.
He jerked his arm away from me. “What? You’re not worried about whatever schemes she’s been up to all this time? For all we know, she could have been plotting with assassins!”
“Assassins?” I repeated. I glanced at Jasmine with her faded jeans and shoes with holes in the toes. “Do you really think that she’s got the money to hire assassins? You’re just being paranoid now. The Goddess wouldn’t tell us to marry her if she were trying to kill us.”
Owen glowered at me in the way I knew all too well. When he got into his moods, there wasn’t much that we could do to get him out of them. I folded my arms and leaned against the doorway as Jace attempted to guide Jasmine past us into the house. But Owen stepped in front of them and stuck his finger in Jasmine’s face, making her flinch back.
“I’m going to be watching you,” he said. “So don’t try anything. And if I found out that you did something to cause this—”
I pulled him back again. “What could she have done?”
“Drugged the priestess!”
“She didn’t drug the priestess,” Jace said through gritted teeth. “Let’s take this inside before people start noticing.”
Renz pushed open the door for us, and we filed in, Jasmine caught between Jace and me. The hostility continued to bristle off Owen, which put my wolf on edge. Yeah, I knew that he’d had a specific hatred toward her, not just omegas in general,ever since they were kids. I didn’t exactly know what happened, other than Owen calling her a liar and a cheat and cruel.
At the time, I took his word for it and joined in with harassing her. The older we got, though, the more I questioned it. Even in those moments when Jasmine did do something that could have been taken as underhanded, like when she kneed me between the legs, it was always in response to something we did. The kneeing incident was when we were late teens, and I pinned her to a wall, accusing her of stealing my backpack.
She hadn’t. But I had still trapped her between my arms, my hands on either side of her, not letting her escape despite her protests.
That was the turning point for me. After she drove her knee so hard between my legs that I couldn’t walk for two days, she ran away, then turned back and helped me get to the nurse. It had made me realize that we weren’t acting like true future leaders, and I’d tried after that to pull back the others. I didn’t try as hard as I could have.
So it really was no wonder that Jasmine looked at us with such fear now.
“I’ll take these to your room,” Jace told her as we got to the common room. He lifted the two garbage bags he held and shrugged. “The rest of you figure it out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” Owen said. He didn’t approach Jasmine again, but kept glaring hotly at her. “I expect you to follow the rules. I’ve written a list and taped it to your door. You’ll follow it to the letter, understood?”
“How can she agree to that when she doesn’t even know what the rules are?” Jace argued.
Owen narrowed his eyes, but I stepped in and held my hands out, stopping him. Truthfully, I didn’t resent the situation as much as it seemed the others did. Owen hated her, Jace would follow along but not be happy about it, and Renz hated being told what to do. I couldn’t understand how the Goddess thought that this was going to work out, but it seemed like I was the one who had to convince everyone to give it a try.
Goddess help us all.
