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DUSK
Inviting Shatter on a date so we could meet up with the Lincoln pack was the last thing I ever imagined myself doing.
Flynn had shot me a text this afternoon, asking if I wanted to join them tonight when they arrived back from their weekend trip.
The problem was, Umbra had fallen too hard for Shatter. Now, every time the Lincoln pack passed us, I could feel him slipping into his void, barely able to control himself.
I had four options if I wanted to attend tonight: Meet them with my rabid pack mate, meet them with my murderous pack mate, meet them by myself (which would be ruder than not going at all since he’d asked to meet as a pack), or bring along their scent matched mate. The omega I’d stolen from them.
And so Shatter, somehow, was the best option.
Her eyes had gone wide when I’d told her what we were doing, and she’d been resentful while I picked out her outfit for the evening and handed her another scent blocker. She thought I was taunting her, and I let her believe it since she couldn’t know the truth.
So here I was, with her on my arm as we made our way across the academy grounds. The early October air was cool, and the oak trees scattered across the grounds were turning bright reds and oranges.
The plan had seemed simple when we’d arrived at this damned place: come to the same academy the Lincoln pack had enrolled in. The necessity of rooming with a random omega had been the only part we’d not been able to anticipate. Then bug their rooms to learn everything there was to know, and foster a relationship to get information from their own mouths.
But I was starting to realise what a fool’s mission that was now that Shatter was in the picture.
It was delicate, and Umbra wasn’t delicate on a good day. He was downright incapable with her in the picture. I was quite sure all he dreamed about was tearing out their throats and leaving them to bleed.
“Then she’d be ours, right?”he asked this afternoon as he’d joined me in the living room.
Right.
Yeh.
Just kill them so she’d never forgive us, and we might well be fucked for the rest of our lives, unstable, waning in and out of sickness.
Those flashes Umbra got, claws ripping him back to the torture we’d endured, it wasn’t just trauma. We both knew it. He was sick. Stuck. His own nature, trying to burn him alive. I wasn’t immune, but he got it worse than me. So much worse.
It’s why it was my job to sort this out.
“You’re sick, and the Lincoln pack is the last lead.”Decebal’s warning rang in my head.I’dwanted to capture and torture it out of them, but he’d shut it down.“Only works if we can confirm they’re telling the truth. You don’t have enough information. And then what? Absolutely fucking not. They can’t find out who you are until you have more.”
So, I was left with false alliances.
I’d considered telling Shatter everything. A thousand times today it had gone through my head, especially after I’d seen her with Umbra this morning. A part of me ached for it, to see if she would choose us.
But I couldn’t risk it. If she didn’t believe even one piece of the story—which was extremely likely—I’d lose her entirely, and if the Lincoln pack got a hold of what she then knew?
Not possible. Not yet, anyway.
Instead, I needed to let Umbra keep doing whatever the fuck he’d done last night until we had a chance at convincing her.
I glanced down at Shatter, who was wearing a pretty black dress, her thick hair was up in a ponytail that swayed as we walked down the decorated garden lanes that led us to our destination.
There were a number of places to socialise on the Academy grounds, and we were on our way to Rookwood Club, which was open late for students.
We arrived first, and I settled down in a booth with low lighting as the waitress took our order. Shatter seemed entirely blindsided by the whole ordeal, so I ordered her a cocktail with a half shot—since it would be completely on brand for her to be a lightweight.
When our drinks arrived we were left to a peaceful quiet. Music played, loud enough to be noticed but not enough to kill conversation. The lighting was all dim blues and reds, and the booths were private enough that I couldn’t catch the words of other groups in the space.
I was left to mull over theotherthing Umbra had told me this afternoon. Something that was so jarring it hadn’t settled yet.
Just like us, Shatter had amnesia. She didn’t remember anything prior to four years ago. That was far, far too unlikely to be a coincidence, right?
I glanced down at her, watching as she sipped her drink. She twirled the little umbrella and scanned the room nervously, as if shadows were waiting to pounce at her.
