Page 93 of Sweetheart: Part One

We spent the days together, but she gave Ebony’s night—which he wasn’t claiming—to Rook.Was he falling for her like I was?He’d withdrawn from the bond in the last week—Love, too—and I wanted to give it more time before asking them if they thought I was crazy for falling this quickly.

Because I believed, for sure, this was more than just a contract for her—that what we were building was real. That part, I might truly be right about, but that made it too perfect, and so I should have known it couldn’t last.

* * *

The dream always started the same.

Those last few moments in which I hadn’t realised who Zephyr truly was.

The before and the after.

“Thought of a name, yet?” he’d asked me. “Yours has to match the rest of ours.”

“Fuck… uh yeh, I have, actually,” I said. “Was leaning toward Atlas, but then there was another one… ‘Avenger of evil deeds’ or something like that. Sounds cool.”

His voice was smooth as silk, marred only by the slightest slur from the booze. “I like that. I think you’ll stay Magpie to me, though.”

Time shifted in the dream, turning into the nightmare it always became.

“What… What are you doing?”

“What do you think, you and me?” he asked.

I remembered my surprise at that. “I don’t… really understand what you mean.”

“You like me, Triton said as much.”

“Yeh… I mean… It’s just, soon. And I don’t know, you’re all older. I need this to look legit—like I’m here cuz I can act.”

“Right,” he laughed. “But that’s the thing. How many alphas get in on an elite pack of our calibre at eighteen? They’re jealous. Besides, I gotta get this rut out of my system before the next auditions come around.”

Just… run,I begged myself.Run right now.

But the nightmare was fixed.

“If we delay the auditions,” Zephyr told me, “It delays your contract too, you know that right? And your mom’s settling in so well at the facility, plus we’ve already announced you joining to all the fans.”

Tell him you don’t care.

Tell him his threats mean nothing.

A growl slipped from my throat, the nightmare spiralling too fast.

“Wake up Magpie…”A touch wound around my waist, waking me too soon.

I fucking hurt.

No. I wouldn’t…

My aura split the air, and this time it was enough.

I wouldn’t go back there.

But then the nightmare stuttered out, replaced by morning light and cream coloured bedsheets. I wasn’t in a mansion of jades and blacks.

He was dead.

Zephyr was dead. Six feet deep in a grave he’d dug for himself. I would never see him again.

---