Page 82 of Serpentine Valentine
Unease stirred in my heart as I thought about what Lex might haveplanned for her, though. Mina Pallas was a lot of things, but she would always be my mother, and I would always be the kind of daughter who instinctively thought to protect her. I just had to find a way to bring her misdeeds into the open and keep her safe from the Gorgon sisters’ wrath.
She hadn’t changed the locks, and she wasn’t home. Why would she think her own daughter would turn against her? After years of obedience, she probably assumed my latest, uncharacteristic act of rebellion would be as short-lived as the Anglo-Zanzibar War. I wondered if she waited each night at the kitchen table for me to come home with my tail between my legs, begging for absolution and forgiveness for defying her.
Well, I’d come home, but it wasn’t for forgiveness.
I knew my way around her home office, the code to her computer, and it didn’t take me long to find the emails.
Mr. & Mrs. Ericht. Professor Dylan Morgan. Chief Inspector Daniels. Paul Chambers, Dean of Student Life RE: Delta Alpha.
All the receipts I’d ever need on this innocuous hard drive.
I copied them all to a USB drive, put it in a spare envelope, and wrote the name and address carefully on the front. The literature student in me couldn’t resist finding a copy of a book I knew Mom housed on one of her shelves. I ripped a page from the volume and scribbled a quick note there before adding it to the envelope.
I sucked in a deep, shaky breath as I locked up and walked to the corner post office box to drop it inside. If I did this, it would end the most important thing in my mother’s life.
Was it worth it?
What allegiance did I owe to a woman who’d seduced me just to twist the knife in the back of her enemy?
None, I decided, but that didn’t mean I didn’t owe allegiance to the women who’d been wronged by Mom’s ambition.
It didn’t mean I was exempt from doing the right thing.
The envelope dropped into the open mouth of the metal box and fell to the bottom with a hollow clang.
“Hey, Luna.”
I spun around, hand to my thumping heart, to see Beckett standing there, flanked by two friends from the team. I couldn’t remember either of their names because Pierce had never liked them much, preferring to limit his interaction with Beckett when he could, and certainly with his lackeys. The trio wore matching looks of something like excited violence.
I recognized the expression from Lex’s own face when she’d spoken about her acts as a Man Eater.
“Oh, hey, Beckett. You startled me.”
“Yeah?” He stepped forward, crowding me against the mailbox by leaning to brace a hand on either side of me. “You should be careful. There’s a violent group going around campus beating people up.”
My laughter was forced, a yip like a distressed animal cornered by a predator. “I think I should be okay. It seems like they’re only targeting men. I’m sorry, by the way, about what happened to you. Lex, um, she was just concerned.”
Even as I apologized, I hated myself for giving in to my ingrained need to say sorry for the wayhehad treated me. Was it biological or learned behavior that made women feel guilty so often for actions taken against them, especially when they weren’t deserved?
A sneer curled his lip like the edge of a villain’s mustache. “You should be sorry.” He gestured to his bruised face. “I’ll be out for most of the season with a fucking concussion because of your attack-dog bitch.”
“She’s not mine,” I argued with a little smile, trying to charm him even knowing I’d fail. Lex was the seducer and the warrior. I was just good girl, bland girl Luna Pallas.
“Sure seems like she’s yours.” He leered at me, eyes lingering over the exposed wedge of my chest in my blouse and open coat. “Does she makeyou come harder than Pierce? That why you left him for the slut? I bet she’s good with her mouth. Maybe I’ll have to put that to the test.”
“Don’t.” The word whipped across my tongue with such force, Beckett actually reared back a little, a minuscule flinch that filled me with power. I dug deep, trying to find that wolf Lex had spoken about buried in the heart of every woman. “Don’t threaten her and don’t threaten me. Step back, Beckett. I have friends waiting for me at the library, and they’re going to wonder where I am.”
He laughed and didn’t move. His breath wafted over my face, minty clean like he’d popped a mint because he’d known we would be this close.
“What friends?” he taunted. “Even Luna Pallas isn’t popular enough to withstand the taint of hanging out with Lex Gorgon.” He leaned even closer, tongue touching the corner of my mouth before I could throw my head back and away. “Has she taught you how to please a man? Maybe I should take you for a spin. See why Pierce put up with you for so fucking long.”
“Back off, Beckett,” I warned, hands fisting together, anger thrashing like waves against the breakwater I’d reinforced in my gut. I was precariously close to losing what calm remained¸ and I wasn’t naïve enough to think I could take on Beckett and two guys from the hockey team without being seriously injured. “I’m not dating Pierce anymore, but we’re still friends. He will be furious with you if you hurt me.”
“Yeah, he would be furious if you were hurt,” he repeated slowly, something dark flaring in his eyes. Fear skittered through me like bugs fleeing the coming apocalypse. “Absolutely fucking furious.”
He laughed, a mean, grating sound that scraped across my nerves and made me break out into goose bumps.
“So we’ll make it seem like Lex did it,” he decided, wickedly triumphant as he slammed a hand into the center of my chest, pinning me against the metal box.
