Prologue
The idea of having a group of women who unconditionally support and love each other is impossible to understand until you’ve experienced it firsthand.
Authors do an amazing job of romanticising the concept of having a group of women who always have your back in any situation. In movies they do the same, usually they throw a man in to test their friendship, but I get it now and they got it wrong. Or maybe not wrong, but neither properly articulate the raw power of a solid friendship.
In the space of a few hours after meeting Raney, Simona, and Heidi, I would have gone into battle for them, full guns blazing, till the death even. No questions asked either.
I’ve read enough about kindred spirits to understand that we’re simply finding each other again. I never considered it would happen to me—either having friends like this or doing the reconnection thing. But here we are.
Heidi Holmes comes with enough emotional baggage to open up her own luxury brand of travel bags and suitcases. Raney Grady has the scars on her body and her heart to prove being rejected by a pack sucks ass, but recovering is a glorious road tovictory. Simona Vanderling has the sweetest disposition despite a future that was promised to a pack generations ago.
The four of us reconnected over tears caused by Alphas who had done us wrong. Although, even if you took that connection away, I’m sure we would have still found each other. Fated besties are as real as fated mates.
Everything clicked into place the moment we met. Then it was like opening a vault with secrets, tears, and anger spilling out and binding us together, forever.
“I feel like a fraud,” I admit. Not quietly either. My words echo back at me, almost as if they’re reinforcing that I am actually a fraud.
“And that is disturbing,” Simona says, climbing out of her chair to kneel at my feet, her arms open expectantly. I bend in half and take the hug she offers, but it doesn’t do much to appease the gurgling anxiety in my tummy. “This isn’t a competition of who has been hurt more.” She holds my face, making it impossible for me to twist away from her compassion.
“I get it, Sim, but at the same time what I went through is nothing like what you guys went or are going through.”
“The first date you went on, Tristan, you got hurt by an Alpha because he was a delusional fuck-stick,” Raney hisses.
“And my parents took care of it.”
Simona pushes gently. “So?”
“There is no so in this,” Heidi adds without turning around to face me. And that’s not because she’s ambivalent or doesn’t care. She most certainly does care but sharing secrets is heavy and she needs a small reprieve as she sorts through her own memories.
Her comment doesn’t refer back to what happened either. In such a short amount of time, she gets me—just like Sim and Raney. And right now, Heidi knows my anxiety is more about whether I have the right to claim being a Scorned Girl.
“If we ever see old Troy boy again, I’ll show him some of my moves as a lesson in what happens if you mess with one of us,” Raney says, kicking out her good leg to prove a point.
“Yeah, we’ll watch Raney kung-fu the fuck out of his ass on one good leg.” Heidi laughs.
“You wouldn’t jump in?” I gasp, getting offended Heidi would only watch and not get involved.
“And risk breaking a nail for that dumb shit Troy? No thank you. Besides, I’ll make sure he can never open a bank account or take a holiday out of the country instead. Which leaves Sim in charge of screwing with his head.”
“And me?” I hiss out, offended at not being included.
She rolls her eyes at my dramatics. “Tris, you get to do whatever you want to him. Or a little bit of everything on the proviso you never ever question what you went through again. You told us how he made you feel, and no Alpha ever gets to make any of us feel like shit again. Deal?”
Heidi holds her hand out to me, and I have little choice but to shake it. Although, when my memories decide to spring out of the box I’ve locked them in, I cling on to her hand like it’s a lifeboat.
Troy was the typical good-looking captain of the football team; he had his loyal followers, including his teammates and half the cheer squad at his beck and call. Plus a girlfriend who doted on him.
But he told me they were on the rocks.
For the entire first semester in Senior year, he pestered me at any chance he got, trying to get me to go out with him. And while I was a teenager and an Omega full of romantic ideologies, I wasn’t blind. Troy was still with Becca.
But he was persistent. He even involved his intended pack mates trying to get me to go out with them as a group. They would swarm around and fill my head with promises. I wantto say I never thawed, but like almost any other person alive there was a part of the chasing, the thrill of being wanted, that overrode my own common sense.
Becca left for cheer camp crying her eyes out in front of the entire senior class, proclaiming she was done. And after five nights of Troy’s constant pleas, my resolve cracked.
From the second he picked me up, he was so over the top, talking about how we should keep our relationship between us, to keep it special. Since it was the opposite of his relationship with Becca, it made sense. Plus, it gave me the chance to focus on graduating and not making enemies. Because Becca had a posse of besties who always sided with her no matter the fight.
Troy was funny, and the picnic under the bleachers with his pack was so darn cute it was straight out of a romance novel.
