Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

Author:Jessie Mihalik
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Between rounds two and three I’d sent Loch to check on Veronica. I hadn’t exactly asked when she wanted to leave, so I’d needed to know if we should go so she could get back to Lin. He’d come back with an amused expression and told me that she would be fine until morning or perhaps late afternoon.

Now, in the light of day, I saw what he meant. She looked like she hadn’t gotten any more sleep than I had, which wouldn’t be too suspicious, except she had a bad case of stubble-burn reddening her jaw and down her neck. That plus the cat-that-got-the-cream expression led me to believe she and Rhys had had an interesting night of their own.

I caught her eye, tipped my head toward Rhys, who was deep in conversation with Marcus, and raised an eyebrow. She blushed then grinned. “And I told him who I am,” she whispered, “so you don’t have to call me Yasmin anymore. You and Loch?” She raised her own eyebrow. I nodded and grinned, though in truth, I was uneasy.

The sex had been beyond amazing, but I’d expected Loch to be gone when I woke. When he wasn’t, Rhys’s warning had come back to me with a vengeance. One-night stands I was comfortable with, relationships I was not. It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way during my first season.

At seventeen I’d been allowed to join the adult Consortium events for the first time. James had been a decade older and handsome as sin. He was from a small house of no importance, but he showered me with the attention and affection that I secretly craved. I’d thought myself in love.

My parents refused to let me see him, which only made him more tempting. He wooed me with all the skill and cunning of an apex predator. He was my first, and it was only thanks to my older sisters that I didn’t end up pregnant—they had taken me to get a birth control implant a month before my debut.

No one could deter me from James, and when he asked me to marry him, it was the happiest day of my life. I accepted and broke the news to Father. Father laughed until he saw I was serious, then he told me that I was free to marry “that bounder” but that I would be cut from the House if I did. I didn’t care—it was true love.

James had a different reaction. I told him that Father would disown me if we married, but I would sacrifice my House for him. I’ll never forget his sneer and his response: “You are worthless to me without your name. I can’t believe I wasted months on you.” Then he turned and walked away, just like that. At the very next event he had showered attention on Elizabeth Rockhurst while the Consortium ladies twittered behind their fans at “that poor von Hasenberg girl.”

It wasn’t until years later that I realized exactly how lucky I’d been, but by then the damage was done.

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