Page 181 of Sweetheart: Part One

The night was peaceful and warm.

Blood dripped down my arm, unimpeded as my bare feet pressed against smooth paving stones. I was ready to throw up, but my stomach was already empty.

The only sounds were crickets chirping in the night, my quiet footfalls, and my breaths choked and thick. I stepped onward even as the world spun, Alastor’s command enough that I couldn’t stop, my body trembling to the point of a collapse it was forbidden from. In one hand, I held a tiny book. The only thing he’d told me to bring.

The conversation spiralled in my mind, playing over and over as I desperately tried to pry it apart, to find a way out.

“I can fix it.” My mind scrambled for an answer that would satisfy him.

“Don’t lie to me, Vex.” Alastor had said. “They don’t want you.”

“Drake…” My voice was a choked whisper. “H-he… he wants me.”

“One?” Alastor asked. “One out of four, yet if they claimed you after today, you’d blow up their lives.”

“T-tell me what you want from them?” I begged. “Maybe they’d still give it.” Tears flooded my cheeks, mind forming web after fragile web of useless plans. “We can tell them I could live hidden,” I sobbed. “I’ve d-done it before.” They wouldn’t have to see me if they didn’t want to. “I-I-If it’s money, we could tell them I’d earn it back.” I’d spend the rest of my life paying it back if it meant never seeing Alastor again.

“You think they’d do that?” he asked.

“They…” I swallowed. “Even if it’s just Drake, I th-think if it meant getting me out of a dark bond—if it cost them nothing—”

“It’s not free,” Alastor sneered. “They have to biteyou,Vex. A princess bond. For the rest of their lives, they’d be stuck in a bond with a filthy gold pack omega.”

“If it’s about another omega, I wouldn’t get in the w-way of that.” My stomach twisted in grief. For a moment, I imagined watching my mates fall for someone out of the bond…

My heart cracked into pieces.

But I couldn’t… I couldn’t go back to Alastor.

I couldn’t be his.

“Please, just let me ask them. Let me tell them everything.” They still didn’t know about the dark bond, and the others might not know about the scent match.

Would that change things? I needed it to change things just enough that they’d save me.Through the bond, I could feel the faint hum of his enjoyment of my terror.

“I don’t think so.”

I clamped a hand over my mouth to cover my sob.

“What we want from your precious mates is so, so much more than you’d ever be able to pay, even if you spent the rest of your worthless little life trying. And they don’t even want you enough to keep the contract.”

After that he’d told me to shut up, then followed with his command. The one that left blood trickling down my arm, and a message to my mates.

His message to them.

Had they found it yet? What if they got to it in time and came after me?

I knew they didn’t want me, yet I begged for it anyway.

I could fight his orders, even now—endure the pain—but for how long? He wouldn’t release the command. I couldn’t live in that agony forever.

Each step took me further from them.

Please…

Please find it…

The moonlight reflected from the black surface of a limo that loomed closer and closer. I saw my reflection in it as I numbly approached, as stretched and warped over the panels as I felt.

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