Chapter 48

Ollie’s POV

“Sylvia!” Conrad gasps. Immediately, he removes his hands from me, steps away, and rushes to Sylvia’s side.

She’s standing there in the doorway, a pile of books scattered across the ground. Her eyes are wide and her mouth still open from screaming.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Conrad asks he approaches her. Gently, he places a hand on her shoulder and guides her into the room.

I take a step back, already feeling like I’m crowding them, especially when Sylvia glares at me in open disgust. She quickly schools her face before Conrad can see it.

“I thought I saw a rat,” she says. “Right there near the door. It scurried right in front of me.”

“A rat?” Conrad asks, then looks back to the door. He sniffs the air. “I don’t scent anything.”

“It could have been a trick of the light,” she says. “I was so certain though.”

“Maybe it was a shadow,” Conrad says, accepting that easy answer. He’s never questioned her before, so why would he start now?

It’s upsetting though, more than it should be. He and I were so close and then…

“Ollie,” Conrad says suddenly, jolting me out of my dire thoughts.

“Yes?” I ask at once.

He motions toward the pile of books Sylvia must have dropped. “Clean that up.” Before I could reply, his attention is back on Sylvia. He gently leads her to one of the chairs near his desk and has her sit down. “Rest,” he tells her. “Ollie will clean up those books and then it will be as if nothing happened.”

Nothing happened.

My heart, which should know better by now, still clenches tightly.

I don’t have it in me to argue anymore, so I go and clean up the books. After I stack the pile just inside the door, I wait for Conrad to acknowledge what I’ve done. Instead, he’s solely fixated on Sylvia.

After a moment of being ignored, I give up and head back to my room to shower and change.

I stay in my room most of the rest of the day, reading. At dinner time I sneak up for some food, but then I hurry right back down to my room to escape any notice.

In the fall, I will have to serve Sylvia, but I don’t want to be stuck doing it for the summer too. So I do my best to ignore everyone and stick to my own spaces.

Just after I finish my dinner, my bedroom door opens. Usually people will knock if they want to see me, but this time, Sylvia just barges right in. She looks around as if she is seeing the room for the first time, then frowns.

“I always forget how small this room is,” she says.

I used to have a much bigger bedroom – the one she now uses. I don’t bring that up even though I think it.

“What do you want, Sylvia?” I ask bluntly.

She gives me a cool look. “Is that any way to talk to your new best friend? We’re going to be attached at the hip when the fall semester starts. Or, maybe I should say, that you’ll be stuck in my shadow even more than you are now. Maybe if you make a good servant, I might put in a good word for you with my brothers.”

“I don’t need your ‘good words,’” I say. I have no doubt that even a compliment from her would be double edged. “I’d rather you not mention me at all.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she asks. She waltzes around my room like she owns the place, stopping to look at my closet and then my small bookcase. I feel a bit like a prisoner who is having their cell inspected.

“You didn’t come here for small talk,” I say. “Just tell me what you want.”

She sighs dramatically, before she swivels to face me. “I want you to back off the brothers.”

I blink. I wasn’t expecting that. “What?”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you making the moves on Conrad earlier,” she says, her brow lowering, her lips twisting into a frown. “I don’t know why you think you have any right to touch him at all.”

“I wasn’t –”

“Your hands were on his chest, don’t try to deny it!”

Okay, that was true, but it wasn’t like I was trying to seduce him or anything like Sylvia is suggesting!

“I don’t want anything to do with any of the quadruplets,” I say. “Not Conrad or anyone else.”

“That’s bullshit,” she says. “Everyone wants them. But you are forgetting something important. Me. It doesn’t matter what kind of skimpy outfits you wear or how you try to seduce them, you will never be as close to them as I am. I will always be more important to them than you are.”

Neither she nor the brothers know that I am the quadruplet’s fated mate, yet even if they did, I suspect her words would still be true. The brothers adore Sylvia, treating her as their long lost princess. They hold her up on a pedestal and treat her like a princess.

Even if they learn that I’m their mate… Even if they start treating me with some measure more of kindness…

The affection they feel for Sylvia will always trump any and all feelings they have for me. I have no question that, even during my moments with Hugh, if he were to receive word that Sylvia wanted his help with something, he would be gone from my side in a moment.

“I don’t want them,” I tell her, but she looks at me like she doesn’t believe me.

“Keep telling yourself whatever you want,” she says cruelly. “But don’t forget that you’ll always be beneath me, Ollie. With the brothers… With life… With everything.”

She doesn’t wait for a response. She just turns and leaves me alone with my thoughts.

Setting my book aside, I don’t want to read anymore. For a while, I just sit there feeling somewhat miserable about myself.

Ella is gone. Who can I turn to, to help make me feel better? I feel like I’m spiraling and I need relief.

Instinctively, I look at my nightstand, within which is my burner phone.

Standing I go there now and message Hugh.

Can we meet tonight? The usual place. 8pm?

His reply comes through a few minutes later.

Yes.

Without Ella to drive me, I have to take the bus to the park. I shift into my wolf to race through the woods to the cabin. Once I’m there, I pause. The lights are already on inside. Is Hugh early?

Quickly, I put on my mask and wig outside near the brush, then I walk forward and open the door.

“Hugh?” I call. “You are early…”

My voice trails off as Wes stands up from the couch where he was sitting.

I glance around, but Hugh is nowhere to be seen. I sniff the air, but there’s no trace of Hugh’s scent.

He isn’t here. He wasn’t followed, then. He purposefully sold me out, giving the location of our secret meeting place to Wes instead.

Panic flashes through me, and I immediately turn back toward the door.

“Wait,” Wes says. “Please wait. I just want to talk.”