Page 23 of The Blairville Legacies

I told myself, day after day, that I could still save it. But maybe it was all an illusion, and I just imagined that Julian still had any interest in our friendship. He didn’t care about anything anymore. Simplynothing.

This was exactly why I had wondered why he had signed up with us at Vanderwood, as my uncle had told me.

“You know... Sooner or later, he’ll come around,” Finn said.

I turned my head toward him.

Of the three siblings, he looked the most like father, with his caramel blond curls. I often wondered what his mother looked like. She had been a human.

It was customary for Senseque men to find a human wife since female Senseque, like my mother, were rare. And since humans were not allowed to know of our existence, the Senseque fathers took the children, always boys, and raised them alone with the help of the pack.

Only now did I realize what he had said.

“How can you be so sure?” I dug deeper.

“Because so far, they’ve all come. Every single one of them.”

The chirping of the crickets relaxed me a bit, and I let all the frustration out of me in one breath, letting the wind brush through my hair, trying to stay in the moment, which I couldn’t.

Finn was right. However, Julian was not like everyone else. He was different.

Broken, yet resilient.

“You shouldn’t get so caught up in this. It’s the Alpha’s job to recruit. Or don’t you trust Father?”

I jumped up and looked down at Finn.

He must have seen the horror on my face because he immediately started laughing again.

“Oh man, Emy. I was just kidding.”

Finally, he rose too and looked at me, part amused, part examining.

It wasn’t a joke. I knew that for a fact.

He was accusing me of not being submissive to the Alpha. But that was not true. I would never betray my family and do independent shit that could harm the whole pack or the highest Code. Right now, when Father had so much to do, I would do my best to serve the Code as he was doing.

“Finn, this is not funny. You should watch what you say.”

“Why are you being like this?” he growled before grinning again.

Then I whispered softly. “Because we’re being overheard.”

Finn looked around abruptly, and I glanced in the direction from which I had heard the soft rustling. That had definitelynotbeen a squirrel.

I snorted.

It was Nash.

“You can come out. We know you’re there,” I murmured, waiting for my twin brother to emerge from behind the tree.

His bright blue eyes twinkled teasingly at me. The straight, dark blond hair was a bit of a mess. And if you put the two of usnext to each other, you probably wouldn’t guess that we had the same parents.

“Well, going solo again, I guess, sis?”

A grin played around the corners of his mouth.

“Dude, how did you hear him?” it came from Finn, who had snapped out of his shock stupor.

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