Page 71 of Iris
Those messages might come across as perhaps flirty and innocent to most, but I can feel the heat from the screen, the delicious filth from all the best books and movies I’ve been forbidden to indulge in, things I’ve done anyway.
He wants me.
And he’s a man.
Forbidden. An Alpha but the wrong stock, the wrong rung. I push out the air I just fought for as I stomp off, Mari trailing me through the barges. I stick to all the shadows.
I want to try a man.
No, I want to try two.
Xavier and Killian.
Just taste, sample.
It could be easy, seeing as they’re group pack guys. I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but I’m willing to find out.
Before I’m forced to mate with some boring and upstanding Alpha.
I could?—
“Iris!” Mari grabs my arm as we cross the bridge to the third barge. There are velvet lounges and chairs where people talk and laugh and some of the Season’s girls are surrounded by Alphas.
“Iris?” Jerome says, pulling away from where the vile Alicia holds court. “Do you wish to dance now?—”
“Not at this moment.” I flash a smile and Mari steps between us.
“I’m her chaperone. She’ll dance with you later. You know how it is,” Mari says.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her.
She whispers back, “You owe me.”
We reach the end of the barge, where the final bridge takes you to the beautiful grounds. Mom’s with Pen, and I’m glad, because Pen doesn’t care if she offends anyone, she doesn’t have to the way Mom does and she waves off people like Mrs. Hyde, Quinn’s Mom.
Rue’s out there with other girls her age, flirting outrageously with Eban Coles, a very rich Alpha who’s just come back from college on the mainland. He’s with some friends but he keeps looking at Rue.
She’s fifteen, way too young. I’m not worried. All her talk about a mate is ‘in the future.’
Dahlia’s on the stage, playing, away from the refined zoo out there and on the barges.
“Do you sometimes wish you were Dahlia?” Mari asks.
“No.”
“Sometimes I do. She’s the one with a future that doesn’t involve babies and mating to please Mom and Heath. She could be anything. A mathematician, a musical star.”
“She’ll go to college, and then she’ll be mated off.”
“Maybe, but to a professor or a pioneer in something. Maybe she’ll be an astrophysicist who gives concerts in her spare time. She could become a star pianist. She’s good enough.” Mari sighs.
I think about it. I want… I want a world where I can make my own decisions. If I want to be Pen, I could be, or if I wanted a harem of men, I could have that, too. Or maybe I could just explore the world. The point is, no map, no plan, just life.
“I don’t want that,” I say.
“But you don’t want this, either.”
I look at my sister. I used to think Violet would understand, but now she’s in love maybe she wouldn’t. I miss her. Terribly. But I have Mari, and Mari’s got secrets, too. Like her friendship with Reece.
