Sarah
I feel alive again for the first time in… well, I don’t know how long. My fingers are stained with juices from the stems and petals of the hundreds, if not thousands, of blooms I’ve been working with all morning, and the air is heavily scented; reminiscent of a fine, hot, summer day.
I’m nearly done with the centerpieces. I doubt I’ll be allowed to actually go to the event to set up, so I’ve been arranging them in large glass vases myself while Cosette takes stock of every finished piece so far.
Blake lays in the middle of the madness on a blanket, squirming, and lifting his little fists in the air. We’ve been taking turns all day with him, and it’s probably a good thing he doesn’t do much but eat, sleep, and need his diaper changed right now.
I’ve never been this busy before, but the deadline is tomorrow morning. I can’t stop for a break even if I wanted to.
Tomorrow night, the queen of freaking Crescent Falls will be holding her fancy party surrounded by my art.
My stomach pitches at the thought.
“I’m going to put Blake to bed now so I can start on dinner. I’m famished, which means you have to be absolutely starving.” Cosette picks Blake up and pats him on the back, glancing around the room. “You really have a magic touch with these flowers. They were barely in bloom this morning.”
“Don’t jinx me, Cosette,” I laugh, trimming the thorns from a rose stem before placing it in a vase. “I still have hours left to go before I’m done.”
“Well, I’ll come fetch you in an hour or so when dinner’s ready. You’re going to eat at the kitchen table, Sarah. Not on your knees in the dirt.” She motions to the mess all around me but smiles nonetheless.
I watch her walk away with a grin on my face and shake my head as I bend back to my task.
It feels great to have busy hands. My mind is quiet and peaceful from hours of pruning and plucking.
But one glance at the tall glass windows has me thinking about Sydney.
I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning when we got back from our walk into Shadowcrest. Cosette said she saw him very early this morning, and he was going somewhere with his brother on official business….
My shoulders go rigid with sudden tension at the thought of what that business might be, but I already have a hunch.
I told him about growing up on the island off the coast of Crescent Falls. I gave him the names of the couple that ran the group home.
I told him Sasha, the girl he’s looking for, is dead.
And it’s the truth.
I swallow hard and start gathering the loose stems and leaves I’ve pruned off a dozen buckets of roses for the past hour and try to stand. My knees pop, and my muscles cry out in protest after being in a kneeling position for so long.
I look around at the mess of flowers laid out all around the atrium. I’m halfway done, I think. Tomorrow morning, all these flowers will be loaded into two box trucks and driven to the botanical gardens all the way across the city, and that’s that.
I try not to think about what might happen when this is all said and done. I need to focus on this one job, this one step forward for Blake and me.
I’m still not sure we can stay, honestly.
It would be so much easier to remain a rogue, able to up and leave whenever we need to.
But I have no money, no plan, and no one to run to if anything goes wrong.
I’m about to kneel again after drinking a huge glass of water when a scream echoes through the atrium behind me. The glass falls from my hand and shatters at my feet as I whirl toward the source of the sound .
Sydney eyes me with concern as he walks forward, gently pushing me out of the way so he can clean up the glass. I have a split second to react before a dark haired woman is bounding toward me, her eyes wide and full of shock.
I lock my arms around Hadley and squeeze, getting a hint of her strawberry shampoo as her curls brush across my cheek.
“I thought you were dead!” she cries out, pushing me away to look me in the eyes.
“She would have been had Sydney not gotten there in time,” Alpha Ryan, the other prince of Crescent Falls, says from the doorway leading into the atrium. He has to duck just like Sydney does to step into the room.
I’m not sure how to act in the presence of royals. I don’t think I’ve ever bowed my head to Sydney, or lowered my gaze to the floor in submission.
But Ryan isn’t even looking at me as he enters the room. He watches Hadley turn back to him, and his expression softens with something like immense relief. “I told you she was fine,” he says softly.
“You’ve been here this whole time?” Hadley asks, turning back to me.
“It’s a long story,” I begin to say, but I glance at Ryan and he’s…
Looking right at me.
He cocks a brow, his eyes going wide momentarily.
My chest goes impossibly tight as I watch his expression shift. My heart beats out of my chest as unease prickles over my skin and then…
His brow furrows, and he shakes his head, looking over to Sydney as he rubs his left temple and stoops to help him pick up the glass.
I feel like I can’t breathe for a moment.
“You okay?” Hadley asks, laying a hand on my arm.
“I’m fine. I tried to call you, you know. Your phone was off.”
“I know… James took it when he found out I’d been sneaking into the NZ.”
I search my friend’s face. I’ve never liked her brother, James, although I’ve never met him. He’s fiercely protective of Hadley to the point that he’s controlling.
“But Alpha Ryan said he’d help me find you, and he did!” She beams at Ryan, who looks over his shoulder at her with a faint smile.
I can almost taste the tension in the air as Sydney straightens up holding a small cardboard box full of glass shards.
He takes a moment to look at me, scanning my face, before saying to Hadley, “I have a meeting with your Alpha. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Hadley nods, and we watch them walk out of the room.
Finally, I feel like I can breathe again. Adrenaline courses through my veins as I fill my lungs, pushing past the tingling sensation lacing over my fingers.
I sink into a chair at the bistro table and stuff my hands between my thighs, feeling suddenly cold.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you happy to see me?” Hadley jokes, but she notices the pained look in my eyes. She sinks to her knees beside me, laying a hand over my knee. “I think you should tell me everything. Start from the beginning. How did you get tangled up with the Alpha of Shadowcrest?”
“It’s a long story, Hads.”
* * *
Sydney
“What are you going to do about your Beta, Ryan?” I ask as I sit behind my desk. Ryan perches on the corner, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks down at the folder I’m opening. His navy blue sweatshirt tugs his frame as he flexes, then relaxes, and blows out his breath.
“Hadley is his business. I don’t feel it’s fair that he forces her to remain in Silverhide day in and day out, but I understand where he’s coming from to an extent. I mean, look at what our parents did to Misty. She’s still in Maatua.”
“What extent is that?” I look down at the file I keep on Gabriel. Everything I know about the man and the history of his coven is laid out before me, only worth two pieces of printer paper.
“James and Hadley came here from Eastonia, for one. It was just them after their parents died. He went to warrior training, and Hadley was put in a boarding house for teenagers in Crescent City. She explained that's how she knows Sarah… who, by the way, is super familiar.”
“Do you know her somehow?” I ask absently as I jot down notes from our journey in preparation to take what I found to the commanders.
“Did we meet her at one of the balls last summer? I could’ve sworn we did.”
“We?” I look up at him.
“Yeah… that ball we took Kenna to, the one where–” he cuts himself off with a sharp laugh. “Wait, is she the–”
“No, she’s not. And no, I didn’t meet her at a ball during the festival this summer. I met her this fall, at her shop.”
“Huh,” Ryan says, rolling his lip between his teeth. “Maybe I’m thinking of someone else. Those eyes, though. Weird, right? I feel like I’ve seen them before.”
I go back to the folder and scratch a few more notes about the temple archives and the necklace I found then close it just in time for Cosette’s voice to ring inside my head, alerting me that dinner is ready.
“Are you staying for dinner?” I ask.
“Nah, I need to get Hadley back before her shift.”
“She’s welcome to come back anytime she wants to visit Sarah. I think it would be good for Sarah to have a friend here.”
“She’s staying, then?” Ryan gives me a look. I know that look. It’s easy to remain quiet and reclusive around our extended family, but Ryan is my twin. Nothing gets past him.
“She’s staying in Shadowcrest, at least. I have her set up with a cottage in town and have a job lined up for her within my company once the snow melts.”
“What? Planting flowers around your territory?” He smirks, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “Planting flowers around your house? While you sit on the deck and drink lemonade, watching her–”
“Designing and maintaining our parks, yes. I had twenty new babies born in the pack, and several new members marrying this year alone. We’re building a new neighborhood of family homes and a second elementary school that should be completed in the next two years or so, and Sarah will be kept busy making sure my territory remains pristine, natural.”
“You’re really thinking long-term here, aren’t you?”
“My pack–”
“Not about your pack.” He leans forward, smirking. “Sarah, huh?”
“Sarah was in a horrific situation, and I’m doing what any Alpha would do–”
“You’re doing what you and I would do, not just any Alpha,” he corrects, easing off my desk and checking his watch. “You’re absolutely sure she isn’t your mystery woman from the ball?”
“Is she?” I ask him sarcastically, standing as he walks toward the door. “You’re the one who introduced us that night.”
“I honestly don’t remember,” Ryan says, but his tone drops. “It’s weird, isn’t it? How I don’t remember a Goddess-damned thing from that night before the rebels attacked?”
I nod, but Ryan just shakes his head and gives me a teasing smile. “I guess we were drinking more than we thought that night, huh? See you at the party tomorrow.”
I give him a nod in farewell and watch him close my office door.
Several minutes later, I’m sitting at the kitchen table with Cosette and Sarah who are talking about the flowers and the work Sarah still needs to do tonight. I look at the baby swing, at Blake, who is content being rocked back and forth as he watches the table with a sleepy look on his face.
“I have so much work to do,” Sarah says briskly, standing up with her plate to take it to the sink.
“I’ll get Blake down for bed, don’t you worry.” Cosette rises as well. Neither of them have said a word to me all evening. In fact, Sarah seemed dead set on not even looking in my direction.
“There should be some extra milk in the fridge,” Sarah huffs then tears from the room without even speaking to me, like I’m not even here.
Cosette, too, clears the table and the plate of food I’m not even done with without saying anything and scoops Blake into her arms, disappearing into the depths of the house.
Normally I’m the one too busy to pay any mind to what’s going on around me.
I leave the table and go to the atrium where Sarah is on her knees finishing the centerpieces.
“Do you need any help?” I ask.
Her shoulders go rigid. She doesn’t turn around as she says, “No, I have it handled. Thank you.”
“Are you sure? I can–”
“It’s all right, Alpha Sydney. This is my job, remember?”
Her tone is like ice, and it catches me off guard.
“Goodnight, then,” I reply curtly, stepping back out of the room. I close the glass doors behind me and watch her work for a moment, and Ryan’s words are an echo in my mind.
Sarah has secrets. Everyone does, so it’s nothing I should be too worried about. But her face when she saw Hadley running toward her today wasn’t the surprised elation I’d been expecting.
She looked… worried. Upset, even.
Nothing feels right when I fall into bed.
I don’t sleep. I can’t. I roll the necklace I found today in my palm over and over again until it warms.