Chapter 4

I had no idea what he was raving about. I only wanted to leave.

Theron seemed to have expected me to deny it. He sneered.

"I saw you coming out of Coach Gordon's training center. You're eaten alive with jealousy of Hannah, and that's why you did this.

"Since you're so determined to destroy the job Hannah loves, you can find out what losing something feels like!"

He nodded at his Gamma, and a crate of my mother's belongings was hauled out.

I froze.

"Burn it."

"No!" I screamed and lunged for the crate, but he crushed me to my knees with the force of his Alpha power.

I turned and caught the hem of Theron's coat, begging him through sobs.

"Theron, I was wrong! I'm sorry, I'll apologize right now... please don't burn my mother's things..."

Theron didn't move. He gave the order to his Gamma.

"What are you standing there for? Do it now!"

"Please, don't—"

I knelt there in despair and watched the pack Gamma pour the fuel and light it.

The flames shot up and swallowed the little bear my mother had sewn for me, the small dresses she had made me... all of it.

When there was nothing left but ash, I finally stopped fighting.

When I got back to the hospital, the man was already waiting in my room.

"Aurora?" He immediately sensed that something was wrong.

The tears came and I could not stop them. I begged him to create a weight-loss plan that would make me healthy.

I needed to become strong enough to survive the pain of rejecting the bond.

Somewhere in all that regret and crying, I learned that his name was Everett.

That reminded me that he had once played on the pack hockey team, and that his sister Camilla had spent time on Hannah's squad.

I was grateful to this man for giving me a second life.

Once my body had healed enough, Everett had the doctors put together a new set of medications for me.

At an age when I understood nothing, my stepmother had forced me to eat and eat.

I wasn't only fat on the outside. Everything inside me was rotted through.

Two months of treatment and care later, my body already felt much lighter.

"For the next ten months you'll train sixteen hours a day, brutal flexibility and explosive power work. I'll be tracking your health, your food and your sleep the whole way."

I watched him lay out the plan in detail, and the joke I had been about to make died in my throat.

Sub-zero stretching, hypergravity resistance work... The training days were hard, but nothing compared to what I carried inside.

Three months later, I had just climbed out of an ice bath when Everett came bursting in.

"Aurora, something's happened!"

I still didn't understand what was going on, so I answered lightly.

"Don't tell me my stepmother and Hannah grew a conscience and turned themselves in?"

His face had gone ashen. When he finally spoke, he looked deeply uncomfortable.

"Your father is dead."