She returns to washing dishes while I walk out of the kitchen and hover in the entryway, studying one of the doors that my scent matches always keep closed.
I’m still standing there when it starts to open.
I don’t know why, but I rush into the library and shut the door behind me.
I should ask them if they’ve seen my book, and I’d like it back. Deep down, I know I won’t. It wasn’t just the cruel things that Torin said to me that makes me want to avoid him. It’s how he looked at me.
It’s how they all looked at me.
Cold and distant, and that’s not something I want to remember, let alone experience again.
“It’ll turn up,” I tell myself. “Give it a couple of days, and if it doesn’t, get Veronica to ask them about it.”
The next day, my book is on the table in the library.
Smiling in relief that I didn’t have to ask my scent matches about my book, I flip open the cover and my eyes fill with tears.
Who woulddothis?
I turn the book over, and all the pages fall out in ribbons. Shredded. This wasn’t just a book to me. This was a priceless gift from my little sister—a book that meant everything to both of us. If I hadn’t had River growing up, I’d have been so lonely. We could only ever be ourselves with each other. Laugh at stupid things. Be loud. Jump up and down on our beds. Break all the rules our parents set for us. But only in our rooms when they’d gone to bed.
It's not about the book. It’s about all the nights we spent giggling under the covers in her room or mine. About knowing I would always have her, and that she would always have me. About memories wrapped up so tight in the book my first nanny used to read to me when I was five, and I started reading it to River.
I gave the book to River before I left for Haven Academy, and she gave it back to me, so I would never feel like she was missing in my new life apart from her. I would always have a piece of her with me.
And my scent matchesdestroyedit.
Why?
I look at my ruined book. There’s no fixing this. No sticking the pages back together and making this right. I drag the back of my hand over my wet face, wiping away my tears.
I have stayed out of their way, made no demands on them, and even avoided asking why they suddenly hate me. Nothing I say will convince them of anything, not when they refuse to listen.
“Has your book turned up, Miss?” Veronica calls out from the kitchen.
Brushing away more tears from my cheeks, I quickly pick up the nearest trash can and empty the shredded remnants of a beloved book into it.
“Not yet,” I lie, angry and sad. “Um, don’t worry about lunch today, Veronica. I don’t feel well. I’m just going to lie down in my room.”
My heart is sick, and I feel the same way.
Chapter 9
June
We arrived at the party together, but we might as well have been strangers with the speed my alphas walked away and left me on my own.
“Hi, Mom.” I brush a kiss across her cheek, inhaling her lavender and wild honey scent. My dad nods at me, his attention elsewhere, bored as always at these society parties.
I hadn’t wanted to come.Theygave me no option but to. If there’s something they need me to do, they send Veronica.
“Pack Wells requests that you dress for a party at seven.”
That’s what Veronica had said this morning over breakfast, her smile sympathetic as she delivered what amounted to an order.
I was ready and waiting by the door at 6:58.
Haven Academy taught me not to complain, make a scene, or embarrass my alpha. I’d wanted to open the front door and walk out of the house and never go back. But where would I go? To my parents? Mom would shake her head and send me right back; Dad would tell me not to upset Mom, and that would be that. I’d be right back where I started: with my scent matches, who I’m learning to hate.
