1
WESTIN
ONE YEAR AGO
Of course it was raining.
At least the sky could cry today. My uncles were too enraged at the loss of their omega to feel their sadness, and I had stopped crying years ago.
The mud squelched under my black heels as I tried to find a solid surface to stand on by her gravesite. Aunt Cat hated the rain. She would have been miserable today. Not that most people would enjoy their own funeral.
The pastor droned on abouteverything happening for a reasonandbetter days to come. She would have hated that, too.
Cat was much more of a free spirit than most realized… even her alphas hadn’t known that side of her. But she had taught me about mysticism and magic and the mysteries of the universe.
I moved in with Cat and her pack after my parents’ deaths when I was eight. I’d spent those first few months shut in my new room, thumbing through my mom’s tarot set and hoping somehow the cards would bring her back to me. When Cat discovered them, she recognized the set as the one she’dgifted my mom. She smiled in a way I’d learned held secrets just waiting to spill over and pulled me towards her nest. I’d hesitated by the door, unwilling to enter another omega’s sacred space, but Cat had made an impatient sound before playfully rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my nest, and I’ll do what I damn well please with it. Plus, you smell nice—comforting. Sweet, and peaceful, and—” Her eyes, smiling around the edges just moments before, flickered briefly with grief. And I’d known she was thinking of my mom.
I’d taken a small step into the room, then another, until I finally sank into the softness of Cat’s nest. Before I knew it, I was spending night after night holed up with her, giggling over tarot cards and peppering her with questions about everything from stories about my mother to questions about being an omega. Her alphas hadn’t liked that. But then, they didn’t like much of anything to do with me.
In those cards, I’d felt…something. A tug in my gut that said, “Here is the whole universe, waiting just for you.”
Cat hadn’t known how to be a mom, but she had been a friend to me. One I would dearly miss.
She deserved my tears today. My throat was tight, and pressure built behind my eyes, but I couldn’t make them come. I’d cried a lot those first few months after my parents died until Rupert lost his patience and locked me in a closet. After a couple of hours, something deep inside me hardened. Cat had been out with Alex and Sean at the time, and I’d never told her. But my heart hadn’t been the same since.
I let out a tiny sigh of relief when the sermon ended, but the tension returned when I felt a presence at my elbow. Sean placed his hand lightly on my arm. To an outsider, it would have looked like a gesture of comfort from an uncle to his niece.
He leaned in, his lips almost at my ear. “The only good thing about her being gone is we can finally be rid of you.”
A chill ran through me, and I forced myself not to flinch. Through the years, I’d perfected my blank mask.
My uncles rejoined the small crowd heading back towards the church. I stayed rooted to the spot, my shoes slowly sinking deeper into the mud.
2
WESTIN
PRESENT DAY
My tote bag swung precariously on my bike’s handlebars as I took a sharp turn down a dark street. The streetlights were always out in this part of town, and the darkness urged me to pedal faster. A shadow caught my eye, and I whipped my head around—gritting my teeth against the surge of pain the movement caused in my neck—but when I looked closer, I saw nothing.
I was desperate to outrun my nightmares, but they haunted me around every corner.
A group of alphas on the front porch of a large, dilapidated house called out to me, their porch light casting them in a greenish glow.
“Where are you going?”
“Come here for a sec!”
“Just a minute, little one. We promise we won’t bite.”
That last taunt had them bursting out laughing.
I pedaled harder, putting as much distance between us as possible. The spring air whipped around me as I turned anothercorner, catching my silvery strands of hair in the wind and chilling me to the bone. I wore black sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt over my dress, but it didn’t seem to be a deterrent for these alphas. Nothing ever was.
My heart pounded and sweat trickled down my back as I finally approached my destination. For a moment, I hesitated, almost turning around. I had come to a place that would offer me very little comfort, but I needed a distraction to escape the swirl of feelings and memories inside me.
Theyhad infiltrated my nightmares last night—the Designation Academy doctors. I’d dreamed they’d strapped me down to that horrible chair, just as I had been years ago. Except this time, instead of yet another forced pelvic exam to check my fertility, they sliced my skin open and inserted the device they’d developed to make omegas obey all alpha barks. I’d woken drenched in sweat and barely made it to the bathroom in time to vomit.
