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“Anna Jackson was a beta all right,” Cian admits.
I sit back in my seat and eye him closely. “But that’s not what has you glowering.”
“She has—or had—two daughters.”
I stare at him. Kylian does likewise.
“What do you mean, shehadtwo daughters?” I ask.
Cian reclines, crossing his arms over his chest as he stares up at the ceiling. “Anna Jackson. Age forty-nine. She’s a beta and had an alpha partner for a short time. She was pregnant when she left her pack nearly twenty years ago, moved around and stayed in motels. I found records of her working in cafés, diners, and as a cleaner at one point. Until, suddenly, she quit her bar job, bought a house, and raised her two daughters in the house.”
I have no idea how he learned all this in the four hours he’s been bouncing between his cell phone and typing furiously on his laptop. But I’m not surprised.
I frown. “Hold up. You said she was pregnant. Where did the other daughter come from?”
Cian stops peering up at the ceiling to give me a long stare. “Exactly.”
Kylian cocks his head. “So she starts off with one daughter. Then, while she’s struggling to support herself while pregnant, she comes into enough money to buy a house, have her child, and then suddenly there are two of them. Were they the same age? Twins maybe?”
Cian returns his gaze to the ceiling. “Dellaney Jackson, aka Della Jackson, is nineteen. Everleigh Wentworth, aka Everleigh Jackson, is twenty-two. She’s been Lawrence’s omega for a year. Before that year, no one had heard of her, and she did not attend Haven Academy, which is where everyone would expect someone like Lawrence would pick his omega.”
“Unusual,” I mutter.
“So maybe she was a late-blooming omega,” Kylian says. “That would explain why no one saw her before and why she didn’t attend Haven Academy.”
“Late-blooming attwenty-one?” I arch my brow doubtfully.
While late bloomers aren’t uncommon, for an omega to perfume at twenty-one is. Eighteen is the usual age. Maybe nineteen. There was a report of an omega perfuming at twenty, but that was so rare, it made the news.
Twenty-one is unheard of. They stop accepting girls at Haven Academy because that’s when they graduate.
Kylian half-shrugs. “So maybe she was an omega before and she lived a sheltered life. She could have been a family friend of the Wentworths.”
“A family friend whosoldEverleigh to Lawrence?” Cian prompts. “Because Everleigh is sure that’s what happened, and I believe her. Something else is going on here.”
Something thoroughly unpleasant.
I don’t know where she came from before, but the whole idea of someone buying her or selling her, regardless of the fact she’s our mate, makes me sick to my stomach.
That and immediately call the Omega Institute or the Council because this… this is fucked-up in so many ways I don’t even knowwhatto think.
“We could ask her,” I suggest.
“Sure, we could, if we wanted her to clam up tight, pretend all was well, and climb out her bedroom window the second she thinks we’re sleeping,” Cian mutters. “Five minutes. That’s how long our conversation was when I took her breakfast up to her. Do you know how many times she reminded me she wasn’t staying?”
Cian peels his eyes from the ceiling to look at me.
“I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say more than twice,” I say.
“Four times.Four. We have to be really careful what we ask her and how. If she thinks we’re prying or trying to worm our way into her life…” Cian lets his sentence hang.
“She’s gone.” My heart stutters at the thought of knocking on her door and getting no response. Of finding her and then immediately losing her. Forever. “I get it. You said Anna had two daughters. We know where Everleigh is. Where is her sister Dellaney?” I ask.
“Everleigh said she preferred Della, and who knows?” Cian murmurs. “She hasn’t seen her in a year, though, and I haven’t dug into her past deep enough yet to find out.”
Everleigh was talking about Lawrence buying her. “What are the chances that Della could be an omega and Anna sold her as well?”
“I wouldn’t take those odds,” Cian says. “They sound terrible.”
