Chapter Two

I have heard so many times people say they felt their heart break into a million shredded pieces, and I always thought they were being dramatic… overdramatic.

But that was exactly what I felt as I stared at my “I made a vow” boyfriend kneeling completely naked on a bed and begging a strange woman to spank him harder… begging her to fuck him.

My heart was breaking over and over, but I kept watching the video even as my vision grew blurry, even as my hands… my whole body shook… I kept watching, listening to Elias’ pathetic and desperate voice.

“Please… please suck my dick, Mistress. I’ve been so good; I’ve done everything you asked…”

The woman laughed, circling him. “Only if you’re a very, very good boy for me.”

“I am! I swear I’m your good boy, please…”

“Look at you.” She dragged the riding crop down his sweat-slicked chest, and I could hear the leather sliding against his skin. “So fucking greedy. Begging to be fucked like a desperate little whore. Does your precious girlfriend know you’re this pathetic? Does she know you beg for pussy like you’re dying for it?”

My chest locked up. I couldn’t breathe.

Elias moaned, hips jerking forward into her grip. “No… fuck, she doesn’t know anything. She’s so fucking fat, everything jiggles when she moves. I can’t even look at her naked without wanting to vomit. Her thighs, her stomach… God, it’s disgusting. There is no way I could get myself to want her even if—”

I slammed pause so hard the screen cracked under my thumb.

The image froze on his face—mouth open, blindfold dark with sweat, cheeks flushed like he was the one being worshipped instead of degraded.

Two years.

Two years of hand-holding and forehead kisses.

Two years of “I respect you too much to rush.”

Two years of “Waiting makes it sacred.”

Two years of “Your heart is what I love most, Isla. Your beautiful heart.”

I had felt so special… believing that I had a man who valued and loved me beyond my body, but… apparently he was just disgusted by me.

I deleted the message thread. Held the button until my phone asked, "Are you sure?" and I stabbed YES like I was killing something.

Then I screamed so loud that it shredded my throat on the way out.

I grabbed the nearest canvas—the sunset I’d spent three weeks perfecting, the one I was going to submit for my portfolio—and hurled it at the wall with everything I had. The frame exploded. Paint splattered across the wallpaper like arterial spray.

But it did nothing to calm the volcano in me that was threatening to erupt. It did nothing to soothe the way my chest was so tight I could barely breathe, the pain coursing through me… so I picked up another and threw it harder against the wall… then another and another… and when I couldn’t reach any more canvases, I switched to my tubes of paint… flipped my work table, only getting a small satisfaction when it crashed with a sound like thunder.

I was shaking so hard as I reached for the next thing… anything to ease this pain… to ease the way my mind and my heart felt like they were exploding inside me, like they could not bear to function anymore.

I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. Snot and tears mixed together, running down my chin. My chest heaved like I was drowning on dry land.

The door slammed open, and I whirled, ready to snap at my father… but stopped when I saw my cousin standing there with a horrified look on her face.

“Isla—holy shit, what the fuck—”

Cora stood frozen in the doorway, pink hair pulled into a messy bun, eyes wide as she took in the devastation.

She stepped over a shattered pallet and caught my wrists before I could grab the lamp.

“Hey. Hey, look at me. Breathe.”

I couldn’t. The air wouldn’t come. My lungs felt like they were filled with glass.

She pulled me down to the floor with her, sat in the middle of the paint and wreckage, and wrapped her arms around me while I sobbed into her shoulder like I was five years old again.

When the worst of it finally passed, when I could form words again, my voice came out destroyed.

“I’m getting married,” I whispered against her neck. “In three days. Dad sold me to Alpha Kael Thornwick… that paralyzed old man. The one in the wheelchair. And Elias…” I laughed, wet and broken. “Elias has been fucking some dominatrix who makes him beg and call her Mistress while he tells her how repulsive I am. How fat and disgusting and…”

Cora went completely still in my arms.

Then she pulled back, gripping my shoulders hard enough to bruise. “Where’s the video?”

“I deleted it.”

“Good. Because if I’d seen his face, I would’ve driven to his house and cut his dick off with garden shears.” Her eyes were blazing. “Your father is a spineless, money-grubbing bastard, and we’ve always known that. Although I never thought he would go this far.”

“It’s all over. It is all over.” I was sobbing, trembling so hard, “It is all over.”

“Don’t say that… hey, look at me.” Cora grabbed my face. “You are not walking down any aisle as some crippled Alpha’s virgin broodmare. You are not giving up your dreams. That’s not happening. Not while I’m breathing.”

“I don’t have a choice, Cora.” My voice cracked. “They’ll examine me before the ceremony. If I’m not pure, the contract is void. But no one in this territory is going to risk touching the Beta’s daughter and getting exiled or killed. Elias was supposed to—he was the only one who could’ve helped me without consequences, and he…”

“Elias is a coward with a humiliation kink and a two-inch dick. Forget him. We’re fixing this tonight.”

I blinked through swollen eyes. “What?”

She grinned, and it was sharp and dangerous—the same grin she’d worn when we were fifteen and she convinced me to steal her stepfather’s car.

“We need your virginity gone… and I know just the best way to get that done.” She pulled out a phone and started typing.

“Cora, what are you doing? What are you talking about?”

“Getting us tickets to Crimson Den tonight,” she said. “You know it?”

“Isn’t it some sort of nightclub? I’ve heard of it.”

Cora chuckled, “Some sort of nightclub? Oh cousin, you are such a cutie. Okay, yeah! I got us in.”

“What are you doing?”

“I, my dear cousin, have taken matters into my hands. You are losing that damn virginity tonight.”