Chapter 30

“No, Juniper,” Orion sighs, resting his forehead against his hand and letting his eyes drift shut for a moment. “You’re not being eliminated. So…calm down.”

“But…why!?” I breathe, shaking my head and getting more worked up. I mean, I just don’t understand how I can be so completely in the clear. “I – I didn’t do what I was told to do – I didn’t participate –“

“You did participate,” he murmurs. “You showed up in the cloak. You got on the platform and gave your little speech. It was enough.”

“But I didn’t get naked – I didn’t do as you said –“

“Not every test is about obedience,” he sighs, opening his eyes to glare at me a little.

I sit back in my chair, just staring at him, completely shocked. “This whole thing has been about obedience,” I whisper. “About being tied to the rules – about show up or you die, about not being able to quit and go home when I discover that I’ve been tricked into a Game I never consented to play.”

“From your perspective I see how that makes sense,” he sighs. “But from ours, from mine – the competitions are about much, much more than which girl simply does as she’s told.”

I shake my head, completely not understanding. “Please,” I beg. “Please explain.”

“It’s all…according to prophecy.”

I huff a breath out my nose, getting sick of that word. He smirks, apparently agreeing.

“I know,” he sighs. “And trust me, they’re as frustrating as you think they are. All riddles and signs. But since I can’t know my mate just by sensing it, as you can in your world, we have learned that there will be…signs that she is near, who she is. So we have devised these trials as a way to determine which of the most likely candidates is actually that mate.”

“So you weren’t even testing our beauty,” I whisper, putting the pieces together as I stare at him, “or our willingness to humiliate ourselves.”

“No,” he sighs, glaring at me a little for my turn of phrase. “We weren’t.”

“This is such shit,” I snarl, gripping the arms of my chair in my hands as rage sweeps through me.

Orion’s perfect lips part in surprise as he just stares at me.

“So now we’re just…expected to perform well in these trials with absolutely no idea what the rules are!? While our lives are at stake!?”

“Juniper, that’s not fair!” He counters, his temper every inch a match for mine.

I shove my chair back as I stand. “Fair?” I whisper, leaning over the table to glare down at him, for once having the leverage to do it and enjoying every bit of it. “I’m not here to give you fair, Orion. None of this is fair.”

He scowls at me, standing in turn, unwilling to give me the height advantage for long. Not when he’s got that tall, intimidating Alpha frame that he uses so expertly to loom over little women like me.

“Did you expect me to be happy?” I ask, putting my hands on my waist as I glare up at him. “When my being safe means you’re going to kill one of these other girls?”

“Yes,” he growls, taking a step around the table towards me, almost willing me to cower, to give in to the rules as he so clearly has. “Yes, Juniper, I expect you to celebrate your continued survival in this horrible world, as I do.”

“Who are you going to kill next?” I ask, too easy. “Laila? Beatrice? Cadence or Mahnina?”

He blinks at me, I think surprised that I know so many of their names.

“I’m finding another way out of this, Orion,” I seethe, stepping closer to him in turn, letting him know that I’m not afraid. “Fuck your prophecies, and fuck the idea that eighteen more girls have to die just so you can find a wife. Even if you’re too much of a jackass to try, I’m going to do it.”

I turn away as Orion snarls his contempt, and I don’t miss the fact that a blue wolf falls into step behind me as soon as I leave the grove. But even as I call for Nic and accept his open hand as the invitation it is to vanish me back to my room, I know that my night is nowhere near its conclusion.

Because even if I’ve left one battlefield, I’m just walking into another.

And this one, I know, is going to be much, much worse.

“Um, do you want to…stay for a cup of tea?” I ask Nic, glancing anxiously down at Anton, who just snarls at me in his wolf form back in the room.

“What?” Nic asks, staring at me, appalled.

“Tea,” I say, gesturing awkwardly around, not wanting to be left alone to this fight just yet. “I could call some up…jasmine tea? Or like, green if you’re worrying about…caffeine?”

Nic just stares at me again for a long moment like he wonders if my brain has actually cracked like an egg under the strain of this competition. And then he disappears.

The moment he’s gone – like the instant, as if he’s been waiting for it all night – Anton’s standing in front of me in his boy body, his arms crossed tense over his chest. “Cute.”

“Thanks,” I snap, my eyes already narrowing in preparation as I flip my hair over one shoulder.

“Trying to get Nic to stay so you won’t have to face me?”

“Oh, I was just trying to save you, Cadet,” I say, my voice dropping low as I take a step closer, tilting my head back to keep my focus on his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d want to face me so soon.”

His temper snaps and Anton drops his pretense, dropping his hands to his side balled into fists. “You’re engaged!?”

“You’re at the Academy!?” I shoot right back, my mouth drawn into a tight line.

“Why did you keep this from me!?”

“Right back at you, Anton!”

“You’re being completely unfair,” he snarls, turning away and storming towards the terrace, clearly wanting some distance. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted us to form our own bond, and I know you well enough to know that you’d never do that if I told you I already knew your family –“

“Well, the same goes for me too!” I shout after him, casting out a hand. “Do you seriously think you’d have been willing to help me in a marriage competition if you knew I was engaged to someone else?”

“So, you admit it,” he snaps, turning to me at the terrace entrance, his arms again crossed. “You were being deliberately manipulative.”

I scoff, my mouth working for an answer, even as my wolf stands awkwardly in my soul, her head lowered, knowing that he’s right. I didn’t tell him because I…didn’t want him to know.

“Or,” he says, leaning against the pillar and sneering at me, tilting his head. “Did you just not tell me because you were embarrassed to be engaged to Redman fucking Blythe?”

My jaw absolutely drops to the floor.

How…

How on earth could he know that!?

“Oh my god,” he whispers, his hands slipping from his arms as he leans forward to gape at me. “You are engaged to Blythe – oh, Juniper,” he groans, “of all the rotten, limp pieces of garbage to which you could have engaged yourself –“

I gasp at his gall, my feet carrying me towards him before I know it, my hand already raised and ready to smack. “Garbage!? Did you just call my fiancé garbage!”

“Yes!” he shouts as I smack my hand hard against the pillar behind him, my hand passing neatly through his body. He doesn’t even flinch, apparently getting used to being incorporeal. “Blythe, Juniper!? God, I thought you had good taste – or at least the ability to tell a decent human being from an eel -“

I gasp and smack again, my face getting redder and redder with anger and embarrassment. “Blythe is lovely! He’s –

“He’s a complete toad!” Anton shouts, turning away from me and stepping out onto the terrace, covering his face and tilting his head back like he can’t stand it. “A kiss-ass! He’ll tell anyone who listens whatever they want to hear to get in their good graces, the more powerful the better!”

I gape at Anton, appalled at this accusation, even as my wolf dances anxiously from toe to toe. Can…can that be true? I mean, he’s always said the right things with me but – but that’s because we’re in love. Because he gets me – because we want the same things in life!

Right?

“He is not,” I growl, defensive of my fiancé, even if my wolf has questions. “Blythe is brave, and generous, and funny –“

“Oh, he tricked you, June,” Anton sighs, dropping his hands and turning to glare at me. “And you were fool enough to fall for it, because you’re a sucker for a pretty face.”

My mouth falls open and I take a step back, genuinely hurt this time. But also wondering if…

God, is that true?