Page 15 of Sweetheart: Part One

SIX

Day Two

VEX

Three Months Ago

“Come.” That was all the wheatgrass alpha had said when I’d climbed out of the tub and put on the black silk dress he’d given me.

I hated how pretty it was. I hated that I would have fallen in love with it in a shop window. How many dates would I have tolerated if I could have convinced a guy to buy me this?

But getting rich betas to take me on dates to buy me things I wouldn’t have been able to afford was a distant dream, now.

The alpha examined me, tugging my arms from where they were anxiously folded at my chest. He took my chin in a rough grip, tilting it back and forth, reminding me that I was nothing more than an object—that in here, I didn’t belong to me anymore.

“Drop the snarl, it’s not pretty,” he growled as he shoved me down on the stool before a vanity and grabbed a blow-dryer and straighter. Then he pressed a blurry black-and-white photo down.

My chest grew tight as I stared at it.

It was… of me.

It had been taken on my road trip down the west coast. A bar in a small town in Nevada. The waitress had offered to take a picture of us. So there I was, my arm around Aisha as we sat in a booth. It had been the one place in town that had let a pair like us in.

She was my best friend.

Tears blurred my vision, as sharp grief stabbed me in the chest. I blinked them away desperately as I tried to understand why he was showing me this. Wheatgrass jabbed his finger at me in the photo, then pushed the blow dryer in my direction.

I nodded, shoving the photo back at him so I didn’t have to look at it anymore.

Don’t cry.

Don’t cry.

I’d made it this far without crying in front of him.

I switched on the hair dryer to distract myself.It worked. Doing something I loved pushed everything else away. I forgot where I was, pretending, as I blow-dried and straightened my hair, that I was back in my room. Aisha was with me, and I was catching her up on the local gossip or any disastrous dates I’d had as I got ready for another.

Finally, I was done, my hair matching the photo he’d shown me.

Wheatgrass straightened and reached for the door handle. I noticed a faded tattoo on his wrist, a symbol like sideways eight, skewed by a crescent scar through it.

“No... makeup?” I asked, looking back at the box on the vanity. I didn’t know why that was the first thing out of my mouth. But vanity was a routine for me, and he was skipping a step.

“They want to know what they're getting.”

My blood ran cold.

I wasn’t being taken to a pack for the night. The pack that would see me today wanted to know what they were getting for life.

The truth I’d been avoiding since I’d seen the picture, barrelled right into me in that moment. Aisha had been my constant. I’d had the courage to become a gold pack because I knew she had my back.

Less than a month without her, and already I’d been taken.

I woke early from a restless night to the faint sounds of birds outside the window. The first thing I did was check my phone anxiously. Nothing from my pack. They’d intended to keep communication to a minimum once I was here, but I’d still been commanded to check it in case.

There was, however, a text from an unknown number.

Unknown: Love said to tell you the contract will remain in the office for the week, it’s something all the Sweethearts are told. He’s sorry there was no formal introduction, and hoping there will be tomorrow.

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