Chapter 87

Orion and Laila just continue to stare at me, open-mouthed and horrified.

Anton grins and slowly begins to walk over to me, shaking his head at me like I’m the greatest thing he’s ever seen. A tiny, tremulous smile begins to shape my lips as he slips an arm around my shoulders, even as tears again spring to my eyes and my lower lip starts to shake.

“A slug,” Anton sighs, blissfully happy. “A fucking slug. You’re a genius, June.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, starting to shake all over now, my head hanging. “I get…creative. When I’m really pissed off. Besides, Faiza called him a slug first. I was just…agreeing.”

Anton laughs, wrapping me up in a tingly hug, and I turn my face in towards him even as I hear Orion and Laila step closer. “Seriously,” I murmur, overwhelmed and embarrassed and…feeling everything all at once. “Can we please, please go home?”

“Of course we can, June,” Orion says. I feel his hand on my shoulder and then the sensation of us all vanishing away.

When I lift my head and open my eyes I see that we’re in my room and Anton is smiling softly down at me.

And I realize that it’s…it’s finished.

All of it, finished.

The whole fucking reason I came to this damned Underworld has just been…wiped completely away.

My first romance – my first love – and it was all a lie –

And I’m so horribly embarrassed –

And I was so mean –

God, I turned him into a slug – my mom would be so mad at me for that –

Quite suddenly I tuck my face into my hands and burst into tears.

“Oh heavens, oh stars,” Laila says, rushing over to me with small precise steps, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Come on, Junie-pie, let’s get you…cleaned up…”

She turns me and guides me away. I follow like a child, crying too hard and too overwhelmed to do anything but walk where she leads me. Orion and Anton cry out in protest behind us, wanting to help, but Laila pauses our progress and turns to them sharply.

“You boys stay here,” she snaps – more forceful than I’ve heard her before. So forceful that I lift my head in surprise, looking over to see a stern little frown on her pretty mouth. “You think of something nice to do for June while I get her cleaned up. That’s the boys’ job.”

I nod firmly, agreeing with her, and Laila turns to me and nods too. “Come on, June,” she says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, warm and defensive like any best friend, giving me a squeeze. “Let’s go do girl stuff.”

I stare at her for a second, so touched that she’s being so nice to me – and then that sets me off again – and I start crying –

“Oh my goodness,” she murmurs, leading me quickly away into the bathroom, leaving the boys behind.

Girl stuff, apparently, is first spending a long time cooing nice things to me and letting me sob into her shoulder before sitting in the bath together in our bathing suits, eating chocolate while I endlessly spill out every thought in my head, rambling on and on about Blythe, and our whole story, and how mad and angry and sad and betrayed I feel.

Laila listens through all of it, sitting close and wiping my tears away or adding bubbles to the bath – in short, doing whatever is called for to make me feel better.

By the end of what feels like an hour, but might be two, I rest with my head on my arms, leaning against the edge of the tub, staring at her and feeling quite spent.

“You really are a good friend,” I whisper.

“Thank you,” she says, smiling at me, her eyes squeezing into little crescent moons at the compliment.

“I’m a shit friend,” I whisper, shaking my head.

“Oh, you’re not, June, you’re a dove,” she murmurs, reaching out to stroke my wet hair and then offering me another piece of chocolate. I open my mouth, lazy and despondent, and she laughs and pops it inside.

“I am a bad friend,” I murmur around the chocolate, starting to chew and shaking my head. “You have been so lovely to me – but if the same had happened to you? I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

“Oh June,” she says, her eyes going half-shut in doubt. “If any man treated me poorly I have full faith that you’d transform him into a slug in a second.”

I burst out laughing, still shaking my head. “That’s not the same. I wouldn’t have been able to comfort you after.”

“Of course it isn’t the same,” she says on a sigh, smiling at me. “We’re not the same. You have your own particular strengths, Juniper. What you did today was…very impressive. And very cool. I could never have done that.”

“It was cruel,” I sigh.

“It was just,” she returns, soft. “You were right – those big Alpha boys…they get away with far more than they should. I’m glad to have a vengeful spirit of justice on our side.”

I raise my eyes to hers, feeling a bit better even if guilt still runs through me. “Orion’s still getting away with it,” I say softly. “Nineteen girlfriends dead so he can find one bride. It’s…so much sicker than anything Blythe did.”

“Don’t be too hard on our little ‘Ri Guy,” she says softly, shaking her head. “His heart isn’t in it. His father we can slugify but…” she glances to the door. “I do have faith that Orion is trying to find a solution, in his own fumbling way.”

I smile at her a little, not sure I’ve ever thought of Orion as fumbling. He’s too tall and strong and gracefully powerful for that. But…perhaps she’s right. Perhaps Laila’s gift is that she just…sees this all a great deal more clearly than me.

“What do you think they’re doing out there,” I murmur, turning my head towards the door.

“I don’t know,” she says, kind of appalled, like she’s just realizing we’ve left the two of them alone for far too long and the results could be horrible.

“Do you think they’re kissing?” I whisper.

Laila turns to me in surprise and then bursts out laughing, splashing me with the bathwater. I burst out laughing too, splashing her back until we both lean back in the bubbles, cracking up at the idea.

A hard knock sounds at the door. “Hey!” Anton’s voice shouts. “There’s too much joy happening in there for me to believe that June isn’t better yet!”

“How did you knock!?” I call back, curious.

There’s a pause. “Orion helped.”

Laila spins to me, a wide grin on her face, before she puckers her lips and starts making ridiculous kissing sounds that make me lose it again, so much that I slip into the water abruptly and sink down, sending her into peals of laughter.

When I emerge, laughing and gasping, I turn to see Anton standing by the closed door with his sparkly blue hands on his hips, frowning at us. “Are you two seriously in the tub?”

“Oh, Tony!” Laila gasps, clapping for him. “You finally learned how to walk through doors! Well done!”

Anton struggles to keep a prideful smile off his face, trying to stay stern. “You two dry off,” he says, bossy, pointing at us and then turning back towards the door. “We’ve been working on something and waiting a long time for you to see it. So. Come on.”

Without another word he passes through the door and Laila and I look at each other, both of us clearly still imagining Anton and Orion kissing, and we lose it again – making it very, very difficult to get out of the tub.

When we do finally emerge from the bathroom, coiffed and dry and wrapped in fuzzy robes, we both gasp to see that the room is full of people – in fact, most of other girls from the competition. And everyone is dressed very nicely.

“Hi!” Cadence says, waving and bouncing over to us, her braids bouncing. “Orion said you had a hard day and might like a night out! I’m so sorry, are you all right!?” She wraps me in a hug and I just laugh, still shocked, my eyes scanning the room.

My wolf dances a bit in my soul when we see that Beatrice has not been included. Or Alexandrica.

“Oh, that sounds so fun!” Laila says, clapping her hands eagerly. “Oh, what will I wear!?”

Shocked, I give Cadence a squeeze and grin at her before turning my attention to Orion and Anton who stand side-by-side a little apart from the girls who all dash forward and greet Laila – who is, after all, much more popular than me.

I begin to ask how they thought of this – and where we’re going – but I forget all about my questions when my eyes rove first over Orion in his sharp tuxedo and then turn to Anton. I gasp, slapping my hands over my mouth when I see that he, too, is dressed in a blue sparkly ghost suit instead of his forever-present Alpha Academy uniform.

“Anton!” I squeak, dashing over to him, laughing. “How did you change clothes!?”

“Ghost perks,” Orion says, giving a too-casual shrug. I grin between both of them, desperately pleased.