Page 2 of The Florist and Her Alphas

She pulls me to the wrought iron bench where the tallest flowers grow thick behind it. With quick, jerky motions, she pushes aside the foxgloves, revealing a hollow I’ve never noticed in eighteen years of playing in this garden. There’s a cavity beneath the bench, between the stone base and the foxglove roots.

“What?” I start, but Eloise cuts me off.

“You will go under here,” she says, her hands squeezing my shoulders hard enough to hurt. “You will lie flat. You will not move. You will not come out no matter what you hear.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “Do you understand me?”

“But what’s happening?” I ask, my voice small with fear. “Who’s coming?”

Eloise grabs my face in both hands. Her thumbs press hard into my cheekbones, her eyes boring into mine. “The flowers will hide you,” she says. “Magnus has been waiting to take you away for years, even though we said no.”

Before I can say anything else, she kisses my forehead. “I love you,” she whispers. “No matter what, remember that.”

What was going on? Why was my family acting so secretive?

And then she’s pushing me down, into the dark, damp space beneath the bench. The foxgloves close over my face like a curtain, stems brushing my cheeks, petals catching in my hair. My heart pounding, I lie flat on my stomach in the dirt, my face turned sideways, peering out through a narrow gap between stems.

Suddenly, I hear screaming.

My stomach drops when I hear my mom’s scream from inside the house, high and terrible. The sound of glass breaking. Furniture overturning. My heart pounds with adrenaline.

I clamp a hand over my mouth, horrified. I never heard her sound so scared.

A man’s voice laughing, low and pleased.

My father shouts something I can’t make out. Then he stops shouting. There’s a wet, thick sound that I know, somehow, I will never forget for the rest of my life.

I’m crying now, silent tears soaking into the dirt beneath my cheek.

More screams. My uncle Theo’s voice, recognizable even from this distance. Then utter silence.

No! What was happening?!

And then, suddenly, the sounds from the house stop.

For three full minutes, there is nothing but the wind in the mountain ash and my own heartbeat pounding against the dirt beneath me.

My family. What happened to my family?

Then footsteps on the stone path, coming toward the garden, slow and unhurried.

“She’s not here.” My grandmother’s voice floats across the garden, calm and steady. I allow myself one breath of relief, my chest expanding painfully against the packed earth beneath me. “She must have run.”

“Did she?” The voice that answers is older, smooth as honey, with a hint of amusement underneath. It’s a male voice I’ve never heard before. “Tell me again, Eloise. Where did she run?”

“West,” Eloise answers without hesitation. “Toward the creek. She had a head start. You won’t catch her on foot.”

“Mm,” he says as the silence in the air hangs between them. “You always were a remarkable liar, Eloise. I respected that about you.”

“I’m not lying,” my grandmother pleads as my heart literally stops while listening to her fight for her life.

“I’m sorry,” the older voice replies softly.

And then comes a sound I won’t be able to forget for the rest of my life. It’s not loud or dramatic, but soft, like the sound of a knife slicing through a melon.

Then a small, surprised exhale from my grandmother.

Thud.

Red rivulets of blood seep underneath the flowers I’m hiding behind.