Page 52 of Sweetheart: Part One

“We might not be able to see those golden eyes of yours right now, but we know they’re there.”

“Buying me.” I tried to sound sure. I knew my rights back to front as a gold pack. “I was taken from my home. Kidnappingisillegal—“

“We stumbled across you here,” Stale Cigarettes said. “I see no private residence."

“She looks fine.” A new voice spoke. “I’m in.”

Fine…?

These alphas were about to take the most important thing I had to my name, and they were indifferent?

“Yeah,” another voice said, with humour. “Alright.”

If I’d had any food in the last two days, I might have thrown up right then. Next thing I knew, I was being drawn down to sit on the lap of an alpha much bigger than me, and the scent of stale cigarettes was suffocating.

My heart took flight, and I hated how I froze, unable to move at all.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Vex. You can call me Alastor. I’m pack lead,” he said. “You can sing, I was told?”

“Not for you.” My voice shook through clenched teeth. They wouldn’t have my voice. I squeezed my eyes shut beneath the blindfold as his hand cupped my neck gently, pulling me tighter against his chest.

“Is that so?” he murmured in my ear.

When his hand began sweeping my hair over one shoulder, bearing my neck to him, I broke at last.

Consequence or not, I launched myself from his grip, such a visceral threat of a dark bond blitzing past every instinct I’d built over years.

Those instincts proved—once more—correct, because fleeing left me worse off. The world behind my blindfold was impossible to navigate, and I stumbled on a step, crashing to my knees.

Alastor had no issue dropping his own dignity.

I felt his aura hit the air first, but there was nothing in the world that could have braced me for what came next.

With his bite came white hot pain, and I was dark bonded to his pack, crushing weight pinning me to the floor, his huge hand clamped over my mouth to muffle my scream.

My phone lit to a call, vibrating and ripping me out of the nightmare.

I panicked, my heart in my throat as I grabbed the phone and stared at the caller I.D. It was the one contact I’d had on the phone when I arrived—the one I’d renamed to ‘Stale Cigs’.

Alastor.

Why was he calling me?

No.

No no no.

Early morning light filtered through my curtains, and Drake wasinmy bed at my side. He’d come in after I’d fled Love’s room, a salve on my heartbreak—even if I hadn’t admitted what had happened between us.

But Alastor’s commands seized me, sending me further into a panic.

Answer the phone if we call.

I stumbled to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Then I stared at the screen, hands trembling as I sunk to the floor against the far wall.

Finally, I answered, eyes squeezed shut.

“What do you want?” I whispered.

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