Chapter 4

Avery’s POV

“An Alpha?”

Ryan stormed forward again. His hand shot out before I could react, fingers wrapping around my throat. I gasped as he hauled me upwards by my neck and yanked me toward him.

“R-Ryan—” I scrabbled at his fingers, but it was no use. His grip was tight and hard. “I-I can’t breathe—”

Ignoring me, he shoved his face into the mark and inhaled.

He froze.

Then dropped me, sending me sprawling across the grass, gasping for air. My neck stung where his nails had dug into my skin.

“I can’t believe you, Avery.” His form came into view above me, impossibly tall and imposing from this angle, silhouetted against the sun. “Tell me who it was. Now.”

“I told you already.” I sat up, rubbing my sore neck. “I. Don’t. Know.”

Zara chuffed. “Probably some rich old man,” she said. “For all we know, she’s been seducing him for some time. I bet he filled her head with lies, promising to leave her his inheritance if she puts out.”

I stared up at my stepsister. She stared back, that same hateful sneer tugging at her lips, hiding just beneath the surface of the fake concern she showed for the man who was supposed to be my mate—had it not been for her.

“You know how hard I work,” I said in a low voice. I stood, dusting the grass and dirt off my knees, ignoring the way my legs trembled under my weight. “Two jobs, day in and day out. One cleaning at the Omega House. The other hunting animal pelts in rogue territory. All to take care of my mother.”

Zara’s eyes narrowed. It was no secret—my mother had been demoted to the role of slave, the lowest rank in the pack, years ago. All because she had given birth to a wolfless child—me—and my Gamma father couldn’t take the humiliation.

I’d spent years doing everything I could to take care of her so she didn’t wind up as a rogue. I worked multiple jobs at a time so she could eat and have a place to sleep at night, because Goddess knew she didn’t get paid for the backbreaking labor she did in the pack.

“All the more reason for you to sell your body, isn’t it?” Zara asked, folding her arms across her chest. She turned to Ryan. “I’m guessing she got desperate and sold her virginity to the first disgusting old Alpha she could get her hands on.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

But Ryan wasn’t listening. He was glaring at the ground, his jaw working, eyes dark with jealousy. He’d always been that type; in the two years we’d been together, he’d accused me of cheating multiple times, and had even attacked a male who looked at me the wrong way at a pack gathering.

It wasn’t my fault that males looked at me sometimes like a piece of meat dangling in front of them. Even as a wolfless, I had my mother’s looks—small and plump in the right places, with large hazel eyes and sharp features. My hair, a mousey brown color, was the only plain thing about me.

Zara and her mother had always hated me for it, and Ryan always resented the way other men coveted me. Like I had any control over my looks.

“Ryan.” I stepped forward. “You know it’s not true, right?”

He lifted his gaze. “Then name the man who marked you, and we’ll find out.”

I dropped my hands limply at my sides. “I told you I don’t remember,” I said. “Because she drugged me. She planned this.”

“She’s lying,” Zara said. She walked up to Ryan and leaned in, whispering something in his ear. I couldn’t make out whatever it was.

“What did you say?” I barked. “Zara—”

“For now,” Ryan said, voice low and quiet again in that ominous way, “I am choosing to believe Zara. Until you cleanse that filthy mark, proving your loyalty to me, I’m afraid I can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth, Avery.”

I blinked.

Two years.

For two years, I had stood by Ryan’s side as the perfect match. I had never done anything to hurt him or the pack. I had worked hard to keep my dignity, even when my mother was a slave and my Gamma father and his new wife treated me as little more than one myself. I had always loved Ryan, I had never strayed from his side, and I had obeyed him in every command. I’d even changed my clothes to make him happy, hiding my body so men wouldn’t stare, keeping my hair tucked back and my shoulders hunched.

And now he was choosing to believe Zara over me, and what was worse…

“You want me to cleanse it?” I whispered.

Ryan nodded stoically.

I stared at him for a long moment, unable to respond. Cleansing a mate’s mark was not the same as rejecting a bond; those with wolves, who could feel and sense their bonds, could cut them off as they saw fit. The process would be painful, but not deadly.

Cleansing, on the other hand, was not a process for the weak; it involved a lengthy and difficult ritual that was excruciatingly painful to complete, akin to the worst torture one could imagine. It was the only way to erase a bond held by a wolfless.

Some wolfless didn’t even survive the process of their mate bond being torn apart during the ritual.

“That could kill me,” I said. “Ryan, you wouldn’t actually expect that of me.”

Ryan tucked his chin. “I’m the Alpha of Silvermoon, Avery. I can’t have you walking around with another man’s mark.”

My throat felt tight. I swallowed, but the lump was too big and hard to go down.

“So you want me to take that risk,” I said. “You’d rather see me potentially die at your feet than face the slightest amount of backlash.”

He didn’t flinch. Neither did Zara. I saw her smile get a little bigger as she stood behind him.

“Three days,” he said, turning to leave. “I will give you three days to make your decision. If you want to stay with me, then you must take the risk and cleanse the mark.”

“And if I refuse?” I called after him.

He shrugged. “Well, then I guess you can go running off to your old Alpha,” he said. “If he even wants you anymore, that is.”

“Ryan. Ryan, wait!”

He didn’t. He walked out of the clearing without another word, without even looking back.

Zara stopped at the edge of the treeline and smiled at me. Then, pressing a finger to her lips, she grabbed my dress off the ground and took it with her, leaving me standing there in nothing but lingerie and anguish.

…

My father’s house hadn’t felt like “home” for as long as I could remember. My earliest memories involved my stepmother moving in with Zara when I was just two, taking my little bedroom for me, the one that overlooked the small garden out back, and giving it to my stepsister.

After that, I lived in the tiny shed out back. The roof leaked whenever it rained and there were always spiders—I hated spiders—and my bed was little more than a burlap sack stuffed with straw in the corner.

For years, I lived as my stepmother’s slave in that house, forced to do all of the cooking, cleaning, and gardening. I was only allowed to go to school because my father was a Gamma and couldn’t bear even more humiliation.

Sometimes, I wished he had just sent me to be with my mother instead, but I think he and my stepmother got some kind of sick satisfaction out of watching both of us suffer.

I hurried up to the back wall of the property, looking around before quietly climbing over the stones. Inside the cottage, I could hear my father’s voice, raised and angry.

He must have already found out.

I was halfway across the garden when the back door slammed open so hard it hit the wall behind it.

My father, six feet of pure muscle, stood in the doorway with his chest heaving.

I didn’t get a chance to protect myself before he was racing across the lawn, crashing through the cabbages, his hand gripping my forearm so tight I felt the bones grind beneath my skin.

“You little whore!”

He slammed me against the ground and stood over me, straddling me, just an enormous dark shape against the blue sky.

“I should turn you into a slave,” he said, curling his fist and pulling it back. “Just like your good-for-nothing mother.”