Damon's first thought was Jun's fiancé is way prettier than me. Why did he leave her for me again?

Then, wow, that's shallow. Good going, Damon.

Then, oh FUCK.

What he said, very intelligently, was, "Huh."

Elizabeth seemed to expect his shock and barreled forward with her explanation before Damon could properly freak out. Which he appreciated because his mind immediately went to the worst possible reason for her to visit him right now, with Jun exiled from the pack.

That being, to tell Damon to fuck off and leave Jun alone now that he was free from Ganymede pack.

Thankfully – and weirdly – jealousy wasn't her reason.

"You want to escape Ganymede pack and be with Jun, right? I'll help you."

This is...absurd, Damon thought. If Damon were on the outside of this little scene looking in, watching it like a movie, at this point he might throw popcorn at the screen and yell at the protagonist for being a dimwit – obviously this was a trap. The fiancé of your boyfriend couldn't possibly have good intentions. No way she actually wanted to help Damon find Jun. What reason would she have to do that?

Damon didn't know what to think, but he definitely had a lot of questions, and they all spilled out of him like vomit, but twice as embarrassing. "If you're actually Jun's fiancé, what are you doing in Ganymede pack? Did you transfer? Why? And what do you mean help me escape? You're engaged to Jun why would you help him be with someone else? Why - "

Elizabeth smiled as Damon stumbled over himself, but strangely Damon got zero sense that she was ridiculing him. It was more like she genuinely thought he was being amusing, which couldn't be true. The only person that thought of Damon's stream of consciousness way of talking as amusing was Jun. She stood up, and Damon decided now would be a good time to close his mouth, falling silent.

"I remember you, you know," she said, conversationally, as if this wasn't the weirdest interaction Damon had ever experienced. "When you visited Venus pack and pretended to be Jun's boyfriend."

"Ah. You remember that, huh?" Damon mumbled. Cool. Excellent. He had made enough of a fool of himself back then to leave a lasting impression in the minds of not one but two fourteen-year-olds. Weird. Damon wished he could think of other words to describe what was happening right now but weird was all he was coming up with.

Elizabeth nodded. "I figured out you were just pretending about a day later, but you had me fooled in the moment. I was furious with you."

Damon gulped, and hoped it wasn't audible. Alright, here it comes. She was going to tell Damon that she wants him to back off her man (Damon's brain was going bananas, so he conveniently ignored how she just said she was going to help him, not beat him to death with one of Damon's stuffed animals).

"I got over it," she continued. "Now I mostly just think it was cute. Anyway, looking back on it, I think if I actually wanted to be Jun's fiancé, I would have been mad that he went that far to get me to back off for far longer than I was."

Damon paused. So she...doesn't want to be with Jun?

She paced a little closer to Damon, who didn't dare open his mouth again for fear of not being able to filter what came out. "Don't get me wrong, Jun's a great guy. Perfect in pretty much every way. But being assigned as his fiancé from childhood means that I grew up with him. He's more like a brother now." She shrugged and smiled slyly. "Besides. I tend to go for sexy, sweet, older omegas. Thanks for that sexual awakening by the way."

Oh. Oh.

"Does...Jun know that?" Damon finally managed to squeak out.

Elizabeth sighed. "I'm sure he knows it intuitively, but I was never able to actually sit down and talk with him to clear it up. You have to understand, Venus pack is pretty serious about this whole arranged mating thing. But in most of them, if the son or daughter set to inherit the pack leadership falls in love with someone else that is capable of getting pregnant or getting them pregnant, Venus pack doesn't really care. The thing is, my arrangement with Jun is a little more important. The Hart's are a lot less willing to just discard our engagement, even if Jun loves someone other than me. Even if I told Jun that I don't have any interest in him anymore, there's nothing either of us could do about it."

"Okay, then – why is your engagement to Jun so important to them?" Damon asked. It seemed really strange that they would care so much about this particular engagement and be so lax about the others. What was so important? Were they hoping to get a super kid out of Elizabeth and Jun's genes or something? "And if there's nothing either of you can do, why would you help me be with Jun?"

"Because I'm hoping that if Jun takes you to his pack, he'll be able to convince his family to break the engagement anyway. Their traditions may be a little archaic, but the Harts are very family-centric. They care deeply for their children's happiness, and Jun's not the type to let go of someone he cares about, like you, just to make things go smoother with his family. I think that if they meet you and see how much Jun loves you, it could be good enough motivation for them to end our engagement."

Alright...that didn't really answer Damon's first question, but that was probably on purpose. If she wanted to tell him, she would have. But now Damon was going to be agonizing over the answer. He sensed, however, that no amount of pushing was going to make her fess up, so he might as well focus on a more pressing issue.

"You still haven't said how you got into Ganymede pack. You didn't switch packs just for this, right?"

"Of course not," Elizabeth laughed. She drifted to Damon's bedroom window and peered out, staring at something below. "I have a visitor's pass."

"But the pack leader would still have to approve that. Does he not know who you are?"

She glanced over her shoulder at Damon. "Hm?" she hummed, distracted. "He does. He just thinks I'm here to visit Jun. It's public knowledge that I'm here, technically. Haven't you heard all those rumors about one of Jun's crazy ex-girlfriends following him here?"

Why yes, yes he has heard those rumors. But how would that kind of knowledge just circulate? Certainly Peter wasn't broadcasting her presence to everyone. That was an invasion of her privacy. So either she spread the rumor herself, or someone heard something they shouldn't have and blabbed about it.

This was a lot of information to process all at once, so when Elizabeth slid the window open and hopped onto the ledge, he was just dazed enough not to question her when she said, "Come here and get ready to run. Head to the west. I have a friend – well, she's a mutual friend, actually – waiting that's going to help you get at least as far as the border. By the time you get there, I'll have caught up and we'll go from there. Sound good?"

Damon started to nod – and then her words pierced through the fog of unanswered questions in Damon's head. "Wait – what?"

"There's only one beta down there right now, but I'll bet there's more around the sides and back of the house. I'll only be able to hold them back for so long, so you better run like the wind, got it?"

"Slow down, what's – "

Elizabeth looked at him and smiled, something a little exhilarated and wild in her eyes. "I'm counting on you, Damon. Now go be with my fiancé."

And then she jumped.