Chapter 17 17.Sneaky
Tabitha’s POV
The sound of the door creaking open snaps me back to my senses. I quickly push past my stepbrothers and step as far away from them as possible. Alpha Emery’s figure emerges from the entrance, his brow knitting in confusion as he scans the whole room.
“Thought you were here…” he glances at his sons, but then his eyes stop at me. “But what is your stepsister doing in here too?”
Oh shit. “I-I was—”
“We’re just showing her around.” Jace throws his arms around me, making my heart go at it again. “She said she wanted to do some exploring, so we were kind enough to show her some parts of the estate that she hasn’t explored yet.”
“And you decided to take her to the training room?” Alpha Emery looks at his son as if he’s spouting some nonsense. And I can’t blame him.
“What? We’re just showing her where to go if she wants to get a little sweaty.” Jace smirks at his father.
None of his brothers even bat an eye with his ridiculous excuse. If anything, they look almost amused about it. They look unfazed by the absurdity of this all and even by the fact that their father almost caught us in an intimate position!
Alpha Emery folds his arms over his chest and turns to me. I stiffen. “Tell me, Tabitha… are my sons giving you a hard time?”
It’s in the tip of my tongue to say yes, but something holds me back. Instead, it’s Reed who answers, “Are you kidding? We’re being such good boys to her. Right, Tabi?” Reed’s mouth quirks into a lazy, smug smile. “In fact, I think she’s starting to warm up to us. We had a real heart-to-heart just the other night, didn’t we, Tabi? Real… intense bonding experience.”
Jace snickers at my side. Suddenly, I have the urge to elbow him.
“Tabitha?” Alpha Emery probes.
“I-uh… yeah. They’re fine,” I manage to say, though the words come out stiff and a little too forced. My cheeks are still burning from Reed’s teasing.
Alpha Emery exhales a long breath, his gaze lingering on me like he’s still not quite convinced. “If they ever give you any trouble, you come straight to me. I’ll handle it.”
I glance at my stepbrothers. Jace raises a brow like he dares me to take their father up on that offer. Luca’s mouth lifts in a crooked smile.
“I will. Thank you,” I say quickly.
But I won’t.
No matter how frustrating they get, I’ll deal with them myself. They’re mine to handle now—whether I like it or not. Especially with the bond hanging between us like a secret on the verge of being spilled. The last thing I need is for Alpha Emery, or worse, my mother, to hear it from them.
Alpha Emery gives one last look at each of his sons. “Dinner’s served.”
Without another word, the six of us leave the training room together, walking in a quiet line down the corridor.
The next day, I avoid all four of them like they’re the plague.
Not that they seem to mind. Or maybe they’re just pretending not to. Either way, it’s a relief to go a full morning without bumping into their cocky smirks. I bury myself in chores, anything I can think of to make myself scarce. I volunteer to sort the flower arrangements for the foyer, even though the staff seem to take offense to that. They think that Alpha Emery will scold them for letting me do some chores but I assure them that he won’t. And if I have to explain to him that I need to get busy or I would go crazy, I’ll do it. Aside from stealing the staff’s jobs, I also find myself organizing my mom’s collection of hairpins and cleaning the smudges off her new jewelry boxes until the silver gleams.
But no matter how much I try to stay away from my cocky stepbrothers, they’re still everywhere. The scent of them lingers in the hallway, on the bannisters, in the towels in the laundry chute. It’s maddening. Their absence feels like a weight I can't shake, but their presence is a wildfire. I don’t know which is worse.
Maybe it’s the bond. At least that’s what I convince myself with, that maybe I am acting all crazy because of the magical connection I have with my stepbrothers. It makes me feel this primal need to be near them. It’s like a stupid conscience whispering that we are tied together. That ignoring it only makes it worse. With this justification in mind, it makes me feel detached from my emotions. Blaming the bond somehow doesn’t make me feel responsible for the way I react when I am around them.
I keep my busy charade until after lunch, when I know the brothers will be preoccupied upstairs. Aside from avoiding the brothers’ shadow, I also have something in mind today.
I need to sneak back into the restricted part of the library.
It’s not exactly the safest or smartest idea, but I need to get in there again somehow. The longer I let this bond exist, the stronger it grows. And I don’t want to come to a point when it grows too strong that I can no longer undo it.
I need to find a way to break it now.
By the time an hour passes after lunch, my patience is finally rewarded. The halls outside remain quiet, the usual shuffle of staff and muffled conversations nowhere in earshot. I keep my head down as I make my way toward the library.
Once inside the main library, I drift toward the reading lounge, pretending to leaf through a thick botany book. I wait several more minutes, eyes anxiously flicking toward the arched windows and the double doors to see if anyone else is entering. When it’s clear that no one is coming, I shut the book and quietly push it back onto the shelf.
I quietly head to the far side of the room, where the entrance to the restricted section looms in the corner, caged behind the familiar wrought iron bars and an old padlock. I reach into my skirt pocket and pull out a thin silver pin I slipped from my mother’s vanity this morning. My fingers tremble slightly as I kneel by the lock.
Please work. Please work. Please work.
The pin slips on the first few tries, and I have to wipe my sweaty palm against my thigh before trying again. Come on!
The minutes stretch long, each second thrumming in my chest. I glance over my shoulder more than once, nerves clawing at me at the thought of someone walking in.
Finally, the lock gives a soft clunk and loosens. I exhale in relief and pull it free. I slip inside the gated section and close the bars gently behind me.
As expected, the shelves here are covered in a thick layer of dust as if the space itself has not been invaded by anyone for the past years. I walk past a pile of ancient-looking books with languages I can hardly understand. Just what kind of collection do they have here? Some books have crumbling spines and others are so old their pages are nearly translucent. I don’t linger to admire them.
Without wasting any more time, I quickly scan titles that I can understand and may find helpful. My fingers trace along a few promising books like ritual studies, old magic, psychic links—I’m impressed by the things they keep here, but none of them contain the detail I need.
I need to find more.
I desperately scour through the whole place, careful not to break the dust that blankets the shelves, so no one will notice that someone sneaked in here. Then, my eyes drift to a manuscript tucked behind a set of other old books. The title along the spine reads: Soul Tethers and Mate Imprints. My pulse skips as I pull it out and flip through the pages.
This must be it!
I’ve never snatched a book this fast in my life. I find a secluded corner of the study and lower myself to the floor, book in hand. I begin to skim through the book, never minding the dirty less-than ideal reading environment.
A chapter catches my eye, one that speaks about how alpha blood binds scent and spirit, how proximity strengthens emotional pull. It has an illustration of a weird diagram in it that I can’t quite understand, but I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with… rituals? My eyes narrow down at the word.
One passage details a cleansing ritual said to weaken bonds formed without consent. I read faster, eyes hungrily searching for specifics, anything actionable, when I hear the sound of footsteps behind me.
I freeze.
Before I can react, Reed steps into view. His expression hardens as soon as his gaze drops to the book in my lap.
Shit.
“I-I uh—” I don’t even have the time to come up with an excuse to why I sneaked in here despite their earlier warning when he strides forward, plucks the book from my hands, and snaps it shut. He doesn’t spare me another glance, just turns and walks off.
“Reed, wait—” I start, but the words die on my tongue as he disappears between the shelves.
I sit there, stunned. My fingers still hover where the book had rested. What just happened? I am so close to uncovering a way to break the mate bond and it just slips out of my grasp just like that.
At midnight, back in my room, I find the same black volume placed neatly on my desk. It’s the exact book I had been reading earlier in the restricted section.
I flip through it and immediately notice that several pages are missing. The sections that have been ripped out are the ones I had been focused on. The chapter on cleansing rituals is gone, along with the information about breaking mate bonds.
Damn it. Reed didn’t just take the book to stop me at that moment. He removed the exact pages he didn’t want me to see.
I sit down and groan inwardly. This is clearly a warning from here. He’s taunting me that my efforts to break the bond are useless. He made sure I wouldn’t find the answers I was looking for.
But I don’t think my stubbornness will let me accept defeat just yet.