"Tell me, Barbie…" Dante’s voice was a dark caress, low and sinful as he caged me against the wall. His fingers trailed down my neck, slow and teasing, making my breath hitch. "Are you trying to run from us… or are you waiting for one of us to catch you?" I hated how my body reacted, how warmth curled between my thighs despite the warning bells in my mind. "You’re trembling," Dante murmured, his lips brushing the sensitive skin of my neck. Knox chuckled, his grip tightening. "You’re so soft, Little Moon. So easy to tease. Tell me…" His voice dipped lower, "Are you shaking because you’re afraid… or because you’re turned on?" A small gasp escaped before I could stop it. Adonis’s gaze darkened, his thumb dragging over my bottom lip. "We should punish her for trying to leave," he mused. Dante’s smirk was pure sin. "Oh, I have so many ideas." "We could tie her up," Knox added casually, fingers tracing slow, lazy circles against my hip. "Make her beg for mercy." Three ruthless Alphas. Her step-uncles. Her fated mates. In her past life, Adonis, Knox, and Dante Logan hated her—tormented her, rejected her, and cast her aside. She died knowing they had never loved her. But fate has given her a second chance. Now, she’s running before they realize the truth—that she is their mate. Because once the Logan Brothers find out? They’ll never let her go.
view moreAUTUMN POV
The grand hall of the Logan estate was suffocating, the thick air pressing against my skin like an unbearable weight. Every eye in the room was on me—some filled with judgment, others with curiosity. But the worst of them? The three pairs of silver-blue eyes that had once looked at me with love, now burning with cold fury.
Adonis sat in the center, his presence an unmovable force. Knox stood beside him, unreadable, calculating. And Dante... Dante leaned against the table, his fingers drumming lightly, his expression unreadable, but his eyes? They were darker than I’d ever seen them.
Knox unfurled the scroll in his hand, the parchment crinkling as he spoke.
"The evidence speaks for itself." His voice was calm, but his tone carried weight. "And we have testimony."
My breath hitched as the side doors creaked open.
Two figures stepped inside.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Ivy and Rowan.
My supposed best friends. My confidants. The ones I trusted most.
"No." The word escaped my lips before I could stop it. "No, no, no..."
Ivy wouldn’t meet my gaze, her head bowed as she stepped forward. But Rowan? His eyes were steady, cold.
"Speak," Adonis commanded.
Ivy swallowed hard. "I saw Autumn arguing with Thorne three nights ago. She threatened him."
The weight of the accusation crashed into me. My throat clenched. "He was blocking my return to the pack!" My voice wavered, but I forced myself to look them in the eyes. "We argued, yes, but I never threatened his life!"
Rowan stepped forward. "I saw her retrieving herbs from the eastern forest—wolfsbane and nightshade. She said it was for protection, but..."
"But what?" I snapped, my voice sharp, desperate. "You know exactly why I was gathering those herbs! I was helping Healer Willow prepare a salve for the warriors—nothing more!"
His expression didn’t waver. "You told me yourself that wolfsbane in high doses is lethal."
I gritted my teeth. "Because it is. That doesn’t mean I used it!"
Dante pushed off the table, walking toward me, his pine and smoke scent wrapping around me like a cruel reminder of what I had lost.
He stopped just inches away, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I want to believe you, Little Moon. More than anything."
Little Moon. The nickname he had given me when we were younger.
My heart cracked.
I searched his gaze for the warmth that used to be there. For the protector I had known since childhood.
"Then believe me." My voice wobbled. "Someone is setting me up."
For a moment—just a moment—doubt flickered in his eyes.
Then Adonis slammed his hand on the table. "Enough!"
The sound echoed through the hall, and my body flinched involuntarily.
"The council will deliberate on your punishment."
My lips parted, disbelief washing over me. "What about a fair trial?" My voice rose. "What about justice? Since when do the Logans condemn without a proper investigation?"
Knox stepped closer, tilting his head slightly as he studied me. "You speak of justice while Beta Thorne lies dead? Your dagger in his heart?"
A sharp laugh bubbled out of me—hollow, broken. "A dagger anyone could have taken from my quarters! I was helping Healer Willow all that night—ask her!"
Adonis’s voice was cold. "Healer Willow confirms you left her side for over an hour."
An hour?
My stomach dropped.
That wasn’t possible.
I hadn’t left except to—
Oh gods.
Except to retrieve more supplies from the storage room.
An hour.
That was enough time to commit a murder.
But I hadn’t.
I hadn’t.
I forced myself to breathe. "There must be someone who saw me in the storage room," I pleaded, desperation clawing at my throat.
Knox arched a brow. "Convenient that the storage room has no windows and only one entrance, which no one passed through during that time."
I shook my head, my pulse roaring in my ears. "Someone is framing me. You know it. You have to know it!"
Dante’s jaw tightened. "Who? Who would go to these lengths?"
I met his gaze. "Agatha."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Adonis scoffed, shaking his head. "Again with your jealousy, Autumn?"
I felt sick.
Jealousy. That’s what they thought this was?
That was the lie Agatha had spun around me for years.
Since she came into their lives five years ago, she had played the perfect little sister, the fragile victim. She ran to them every time, crying, pointing fingers, weaving her web of deceit so tightly around me that I could no longer breathe.
Every punishment, every cruel word, every time their gazes turned colder—it was all her.
And now, it had gone so far that she had orchestrated a murder and placed the blame on me.
The doors slammed shut with a resounding thud, the echo reverberating through the empty hall.
Everyone was gone.
Everyone except them.
Adonis stood in the center, his broad frame stiff with barely restrained fury. Knox leaned against the long wooden table, arms crossed, silver-blue eyes unreadable. And Dante—Dante rolled a piece of ice between his fingers, his wolf tattoo shifting as he flexed his hand.
My breath came shallow.
I was alone with my mates.
Alone with my executioners.
Adonis’s voice was like a blade slicing through the silence. "Take her."
Knox stepped forward first. Before I could react, his hands—so familiar, so warm once—grabbed my wrists, dragging me across the cold floor. My struggles were useless. "Don’t fight, Autumn," he said, voice deceptively calm. "You’ll only make it worse."
My back hit the wooden bedframe, and in seconds, thick ropes coiled around my wrists and ankles, binding me in place.
No. No. No.
The ropes bit into my skin as I twisted. "Knox, please—"
His grip tightened painfully. "It’s Alpha Knox to you now."
My chest heaved. "You used to call me Barbie." My voice cracked.
His silver-blue eyes met mine, something unreadable flickering in their depths. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. "Barbie was innocent," he said simply. "Barbie wasn’t a liar."
I wanted to scream.
Wanted to force them to see me.
But then Adonis stepped forward, a smooth, polished stick in his grasp. The phoenix tattoo on his neck flexed with every move he made.
"Your sweet words and that innocent face once had me fooled... had me weak." His grip on the stick tightened, and with one swift strike—crack!
Pain exploded across my wrist.
A strangled yelp tore from my throat.
Adonis smirked, his golden-brown eyes flickering with something dark. "But I was the idiot, wasn’t I? You—just a rogue omega—of course, you’d show your true, filthy colors in the end. Deception is in your blood."
"I didn’t do it!" I choked out, fighting the burning in my eyes. "Agatha—she’s the one who—"
Crack!
Another hit, this time against my forearm. The sting pulsed through my bones, but the betrayal? The betrayal burned worse.
Adonis let out a cold chuckle. "Blaming your stepsister again, Autumn?" He tilted his head. "Gods, it’s pathetic at this point."
Knox stepped in, his presence quieter, deadlier. He crouched beside me, pulling out a thick rope—the one he had brought.
His fingers grazed my wrist as he adjusted the bindings. "I kept giving you chances," he murmured, voice low. "Thinking you'd change. That you'd understand. I thought you were a fragile little Barbie doll—something delicate, something breakable."
The rope tightened.
My fingers tingled from the lack of circulation.
I gasped, squirming. "Knox, please—"
His lips curled into a smirk, but his eyes? They held something bitter. "But you?" He gave the rope another harsh tug, making me cry out. "You’re nothing but a murderer. A fake doll with a pretty face, hiding a rotten soul."
I begged.
"Uncle, please listen to me just once!"
But then Dante moved.
Dante.
The one I was closest to. The one who never lied—who never forgave those who did.
I turned to him, desperate. "You know me, Dante. You know I wouldn’t do this."
His wolf tattoo flexed as he exhaled. "Yeah?" His lips quirked in a humorless smirk. "And yet, here we are."
He stepped closer, rolling the ice between his fingers. "You know what I used to love most about you, Little Moon?" His fingers traced my jaw, tilting my face up.
My breath stilled.
He was so close. Close enough for me to catch the scent of pine and smoke, close enough that if I tilted my head just right—
Then his fingers brushed over my lips, circling them slowly, teasingly.
"These lips…" His voice was dark, laced with something far more dangerous. "Soft. Plump. Sweet."
The ice met my skin, cold and sharp. I shuddered.
"I used to like them." His eyes met mine, a shadow crossing over them. "You know why?"
A small, involuntary whimper left me as the ice slid along my bottom lip.
Dante chuckled. "Because I thought they belonged to a girl with a pure heart. Someone worth craving."
Then, the smirk faded.
And everything changed.
With one cruel movement, he shoved the ice past my lips, forcing it against my tongue.
I gasped, trying to push it out with my tongue, but his fingers clamped over my mouth, trapping the ice inside. Water trickled down my throat, making me choke.
His voice dipped into a taunting whisper against my ear. "But I was wrong, wasn’t I?"
Adonis POV I thought she was a kind and sweet girl who wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone but now I cannot believe what I'm listening to. I can't hold back the rage I feel inside. It doesn't matter how much she hates Autumn or anything, no one deserves that kind of suffering. Did we really misunderstand Autumn in the past life and ignore her when all of those happened to her? I clearly remember now that everything that happened to Agatha at school was supposed to be for Autumn. It's no wonder Autumn hates us so much and she doesn't even want to listen to us at all. We not only rub salt on her wound, but we also made sure she didn't heal from it by punishing her. There's no need to look for when she would hate us. She has every reason and more to haters yet we act like we are the saints. We abandoned her in the past life and she had to shoulder everything for herself. We thought she was being a slut. Even when we discovered she was our mate, we just didn't accept her and only made
Agatha's POV I'm so mad right now. I cannot stand seeing her. How could she continue enjoying life and I get ignored like this? They haven't even told me if they got a result for the investigation, which I made sure they wouldn't be able to get anything else other than the fact that Autumn would be the one who is responsible for everything that happened to me. I made sure I planned this step by step, yet they are not doing anything about it. I'm so angry that I can hurt someone, but there's nothing I can do for now. I have to wait around here till they sort the problem for me. I can't even go around school without being scared of people laughing at me. Even though they have been asked not to talk about it, there's no way they won't talk behind my back or even look at me weirdly. How am I supposed to live my life like this? I haven't been able to come out in days, thanks to her. My plan was to make a mess of her and get her innocence ruined in front of everyone at school. I was pla
Autumn's POV What's with this bastard? Why is he running mad again? I thought I already asked them to stay away from me? What's this about being my fiance now? And I had to see this early in the morning. They're really pushing me to the edge. Should I just poison them once and for all? How easy would life be once they are dead? "My fiance? Are you losing the plot? This is a fake relationship. Who made you my fiance?" I fired at him. He shrugged, "Maybe the fact that you're supposed to act like our fiance in the contract? We have to show the entire world we love each other." I shouldn't have had a contract with them. Now he's going to keep mentioning this to me all the days of my life. He has no shame coming to meet me like this. After everything that he and his brother did to me yesterday, they shouldn't even be coming close to me. "You're so shameless. I hate talking to you. Do I have to condone all this nonsense from you or what? Every single time you make me mad."I complaine
Adonis's POV “We all messed up. Everything she said isn't without a reason. She has every right to hate us like that. It's what we deserve for hurting her too much.” I lamented, pouring myself another drink. My brothers and I are trying to distract ourselves with a few drinks but they're not helping out. How can we easily forget her? We hurt her so much like that, there's no way she'll forgive us easily. “I think we've been wrong with our approach all along. We should have just let her know we were reborn too and begged her for forgiveness everyday.” Knox added. But I don't think I'll agree with that. If she knew we were reborn, she won't even talk to us at all because she would know we remember everything we did to her. “I think it's better this way. She doesn't have to know if we are going to get her back.” I said. “Let's not be selfish anymore. What we're doing to her is completely unfair to her. She doesn't deserve to suffer like this. We should forget our pride and seriousl
Autumn's POV “Autumn, can you please calm down and talk with us. We know we're wrong and don't want to have any problems with you. Things are just a bit out of control.” Knox begged me. This begging is making me feel disgusted more and more. What the hell is their problem? Where did they learn this disgusting acting from? It certainly can't be from me because what the hell is that?“Stop acting. I'm not stupid and I think I've told you this so many times. Stop bothering me too. Go comfort your princess whose innocence was stolen, that's if she even had one in the first place.” I smirked. “What?” They all sounded shocked. Agatha clearly never had an innocence but they're too blind to see it. It's not my job to make them see the truth, I just hate dealing with them every single time. Since I can't get out of this situation for now because of the damn contract, I might as well just make them forcefully break it. Then I'll be free and walk away completely from their life. I don't thi
Autumn's POV I was still burning with anger as I stayed in my room. It was so unbelievable for me. They were acting so nice the past few days, only to exclude at a trick that Agatha played. If they were really interested in finding out what happened, they would have already found out that she had something to do with it. But of course, they would not be fair in their investigation and they would try to make sure that they save Agatha first at all times. Why should I believe people like them? Is she really everything they want? Or are they just stupid? This is really not working. I can’t believe they tried to make me kneel down just because of her. Or maybe I'm saying things the wrong way because they didn't just try to make me new, they forced me and I bruised my leg thanks to them. They know I have no fast healing mechanism like them, yet they keep treating me like I'm dust. They want me to forgive them, and they act like this. I don't know where they got the audacity that I'm go
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