Page 125 of Mask and the Magnolia
“They’re my mates.”
“And I don’t give a flying fuck. They could be the goddamn second coming of Christ and I still wouldn’t let you be with them. You are marrying Camden Blackhurst this Saturday or else.”
He turns on his heel, leaving me shaking and panicked against the wall, my head fuzzy while spots dance across my vision.
The room is spinning.
I’m definitely going to blackout.
My stomach rolls and I have to focus on my breathing so I don’t throw up but as I do that, what he said sinks in, and the new form of terror those words carry digs its claws deep. “Or else what?”
The Dean pauses as he goes for his coat and he turns to face me slowly.
But I don’t back down, not when I have to know what he means. “They’re my mates, my scent matches. We share fate bonds. I have their marks on my skin and they have mine. I love them, and I don’t trust you. Knowing what they mean to me, knowing what I’ve already risked by being with them, how can you be so confident I won’t leave Camden at the altar and run away with them or something?”
My father grins, every one of his blinding white teeth on display as he proceeds to ruin my life once and for all. “Isaak Lowe will be fired, he’ll lose his license to practice, and I will destroy his reputation so thoroughly he won’t even be able to get a job flipping burgers. As for those deviants, those cold bloodedkillers you’re so fond of? They’ll be transferred out of here and sent directly into their own personal hells.”
I shake my head as I wrap my arms around my waist. “Isaak is a good doctor, he cares about his work, he doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good man.”
He waves me off dismissively and starts bundling up, putting on his winter items as if he isn’t killing me with every word he speaks. “Desmond Hawthorne will find himself at a prison that doesn’t believe in psychiatric treatment unless it involves some sort of cruel and unusual punishment. That beta, Calix St. James? He’s never been anywhere outside these walls, I’m sure I can find him a nice little cot in Colorado’s maximum security facility. They’ll be eager to bring him home, might even try him as an adult now that his file’s a little thicker.”
“No, please, Calix wouldn’t make it somewhere else and Des, he needs treatment. He does better with treatment, he isn’t a threat.” The tears flow freely as I watch him in disbelief. How could I be related to him? How could someone be so cold and unfeeling to their own flesh and blood?
“As for Korvin Severe,” my father says as he wraps his scarf around his neck. “He’ll be walking the green mile upstate within forty eight hours of his transfer. They don’t take kindly to an alpha that doesn’t think twice about using a shotgun on a pregnant mother and her two small daughters.”
“He didn’t do that,” I sob, my words full of the truth I feel down to my bones.
Truth that’s confirmed by the devil himself.
“No, but his file says otherwise, and as long as Bryce Harden is alive, Severe will carry the weight of those crimes on his shoulders right along with the rest of them.” Byron Reynolds smiles wider than before as he pulls his phone from his pocket. “You don’t go through with this marriage, all it takes is one phone call from me and I will destroy those men youlovebeforeyou take your next breath. You want to spare your mates? Quit your job, marry Camden, and never set foot in one of those three buildings again. The choice is yours.”
It’s a choice that is going to kill me either way but I don’t hesitate to make it.
“What do you need me to do?”
He nods toward my phone on the coffee table. “Call Dr. Lowe now. Tell him you resign effective immediately. Send him a text that reiterates the same thing but you must include a permanent end to your relationship with all four of them. Quit, cut them off, then erase his number. You do all of that in front of me right now, and you have my word I will let those four parasites live out the rest of their lives, unharmed and right there on Ward C.”
So, I do.
I make the phone call, I send the text. I break my own heart into a thousand pieces, I end my life in a matter of minutes, and I would do it over and over if it meant saving theirs.
TWENTY-TWO
DON’T JUDGE A BOOK
ISAAK
“Dr. Lowe, there’s a visitor waiting at reception.”
I nod and wave the nurse off as I turn in my chair and stare out the window of my office.
It won’t be my office for much longer.
It’s too big, feels too empty.
It’s too quiet and cold.
I can’t be here anymore.
