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I slide my fingers along the edges. There’s no lock, just a simple clasp you can flip to unlock it.
A wave of dizziness passes over me, something inside of me suddenly shifting. This moment feels intimate, like the final step in accepting how catastrophically wrong I’ve been the last three weeks.
Caelan should be here. Soren, too. Idril most of all. But if Idril can’t be here, then Caelan should be the one doing this. Her Mate should open this final gift from her mother, not the male who’s made her life a living hell when he should have been protecting her.
I’m the last male who deserves to take part in this.
That familiar pressure returns, making my eyes and nose burn. Swallowing thickly, I blink back tears and flip the latch.
It gives way with a soft snick, and a faint exhale of air as I lift the lid.
Riven and Vae crowd closer. The wind whispers through the willows' fronds, and a bird chirps in the distance.
A grin blooms on my face when I see what’s inside.
A book.
It’s beautiful. Bound in leather, with edges worn smooth and wrapped with a leather cord. It’s a deep brown, aged with scratches and marks layered on top of each other. Signs it’s been well loved and handled often.
My hand wanders to my backpack, and I feel absently for the rectangular shape of The Two Towers. I still don’t know why I took it, but when I read her flowing script in the margins, I felt like someone had sucker-punched me in the chest.
Even my Alpha surged forward to claim ownership. I still don’t know if his “Mine!” was about the book… or Idril.
I don't expect to find anything else when I lift the book from the box, so I nearly miss the letter wrapped in a neatly folded square of linen.
It’s sealed with a wax seal shaped like a flame, and for the briefest moment I swear I can smell the smoke of a burning fire.
Vae reaches for the letter, but my hand latches onto his wrist before he can touch it.
“No,” I tell him gently, ignoring his look of confusion. “It’s Idril’s. Her mother left it for her.”
His shoulders relax, and I let go of his wrist. Riven arches an eyebrow. “You’re not going to read it?”
I shake my head before he finishes speaking. “We’ll bring it back to HQ. We can give it to her when she gets home.”
Vae sucks in a sharp breath the moment my own lungs stall.
Home.
For the first time, I realize what that must mean to Idril. She’s been without a home for so long. Even when her mother was alive, this place was never a home. No laughter echoed through the halls, no happy family Christmases, no memories of sleepovers with friends. The few good memories she has, I ripped to shreds in an attempt to make her feel guilty for having them.
The memory feels like a knife to the lungs. My eyesight tunnels as the pounding pain in the back of my skull increases tenfold.
I called her selfish. I called a girl who had nothing more than those few precious memories selfish.
She was so fucking brave, sitting in that chair surrounded by Alphas. Terrified, but still willing to tell us her story. I can still see the soft smile playing along her lips as she shared those few moments of joy she and her mother were able to steal for themselves on the rare occasion it was safe enough to do so.
My throat tightens reliving how her face fell, and she flinched as I attacked her and shamed her for…
Fates, what bullshit was I spewing? That she wasn’t doing enough to help other Omegas?
She was a fucking child!
Thirteen years old with bruises in the shape of her father’s fingers. Hiding under the blankets as her mother holds her close and whispers of a world where little girls don’t have to hide from their father’s fists.
I’m hundreds of years old, and I let my past fester for so long that it eventually turned me into a monster. And I let it. I let my fear and past mistakes dictate my future.
If I hadn’t made my distaste so obvious… would Caelan have come to me sooner and told me about Idril? Would he have been caught at all if he hadn’t felt like he needed to hide her, knowing how I’d react and knowing he had to protect her from me?
