Page 161 of Iris
He flicks me a dark look, one I can’t decipher. Then he stops pacing. “You’re my sister, and I love you. But you know the situation. We need a mating. A good one. Someone who’s staid, scandal free, and very much established.”
“You mean rich.”
“And successful. Before we left, Anton Decker sent me an email. Asking to be your mate.”
“What?” Horror fills me.
He was nice enough but the antithesis of me. He’s settled. Boring. The kind of man who’ll make some woman happy, but that woman isn’t me.
“You danced with him tonight. He’s closer to your age. He said you were pretty and quiet and could be the perfect mate for a man of his stature. You can hold a conversation and seem intelligent. The banking community, the kind he deals with, appreciates intelligence. He said?—”
“I can’t. I don’t know him.”
Heath doesn’t quite meet my gaze. “He’s a good man and love will come. He even offered to take you on as an employee, too. If you want to work, that is. I figured that might be something you’d be interested in.”
An Omega in the banking industry? AnupperclassOmega in the workforce in general would be huge.
But…
“I—”
“You’ve accepted his offer,” he says. “You’ll be mated by the end of the Season. And tomorrow, you will be to the Monarch and then marked.”
Marked? No!
Panic scrabbles at me. “Heath, please?—”
“Enough. You’re not the only family member. We both have to make sacrifice,” he says. There’s a heaviness to his words. A sadness. “Tomorrow?—”
“My sacrifice is my entire future, while yours is taking part in seasons. Hardly the same thing.”
He doesn’t reply. Instead, he walks to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a very heavy-handed drink.
“Heath, please.”
Still, he doesn’t answer, but I notice the slight shake to his hand as he runs fingers through his hair. He’s a wreck.
No wonder Violet kept having panic attacks.
This is insane.
Words hover on my lips—ones that could save me and damn me at the same time. If I tell him I’ve already been marked, if I confess everything about Killian and Xavier, he’ll finally get off his crusade to mate me to Anton. But the shame and scandal it’ll bring…
“Go to bed, Iris,” he says taking another big gulp of his drink. “We can discuss the details tomorrow.”
He turns away from me.
I know my brother.
The conversation is over.
Turning, I leave. So many feelings bombard me at once. Anger, annoyance, sorrow, fear.
It’s unfair.
All of it.
I storm up to my room, and in there, I catch sight of the cloak Killian put on me for the Nightshade meeting. Suddenly, I know I can’t stay here another minute. I need…I need Xavier. I need Killian. I need out.
