Chapter 2

Five days later I looked at the bandaged, heavy body in the mirror and wanted to go straight back and strangle my stepmother.

The man had told me why I had ended up at two hundred and forty pounds.

From the day she married my father, she had been mixing pig feed and fattening potions into my food!

"Don't get worked up, and don't cry. It slows the healing."

He calmed me down. Half a month later, when I had recovered a little, I finally asked him why he was helping me.

He never gave me a straight answer. He only said I could help him back.

So the two of us founded our own private league of avengers, and he sent me home.

My father and my stepmother didn't say anything. I thought the quiet would hold.

Then, just as I finished unpacking, laughter broke out beyond my door.

"God! Why would Miss Hannah wear something like that?"

"You don't think that's how she got the Alpha, dressing like..."

I opened the door and found Hannah in a slip dress that barely covered the parts that mattered.

She was standing outside my room, her face burning with shame and anger.

She didn't start crying until she saw Theron coming down the hall.

"One of the maids said my sister wanted me to wear the dress she gave me, so I put it on..."

Theron pulled off his coat without a word and draped it over her shoulders.

When he looked at me again, his eyes were full of rage.

"Aurora, I thought you'd come back with some sense. Instead you're still pulling filthy little tricks behind everyone's back!"

It felt like something had torn my heart wide open.

I tipped my head back and forced the tears down, then answered him calmly.

"I never gave her that dress, and I never sent anyone with a message.

"That's not how I work. When I say I'm done with something, I'm done. Why would I go to all that trouble to fight for it?"

Theron opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

Hannah took the opening. She brought out a gift box, her voice guilty and confused.

"I'm sorry, Aurora, maybe I heard it wrong... The maid pushed two boxes at me. Maybe you meant this one instead?"

She opened the box as she spoke, but her hands suddenly shook and she dropped it.

A sex toy rolled out with a note, and the note said, "Scheming slut, if you want it that badly go play with yourself. Keep away from Aurora's man!"

Hannah shook from head to foot, then shrieked and fainted.

Theron scooped her up in his arms and looked at me with contempt.

"Look at yourself, Aurora. You let yourself go. I couldn't get hard looking at you naked.

"I'm a man with needs! That's why I picked Hannah. What was I supposed to do, sleep with a wall?

"You're not just clumsy and ugly. You're vicious to the core!"

I shook my head over and over, trying to explain, and then I pulled out my medical report.

"There's something in my food. My stepmother and Hannah have been drugging me for years. You..."

The sound of tearing paper filled my ears. My father ripped the evidence to shreds right in front of me.

"Enough!" He cut me off, disgust all over his face. "Hannah wouldn't hurt an ant. How many more ridiculous lies are you going to make up!"