Slammed

I slammed the bathroom door, desperate for thirty seconds of peace without feeling their overwhelming presence. They were waiting when I came out. Hunter leaned against the wall looking annoyingly perfect, Zane was already smirking, and Seth had the decency to look slightly guilty. "I can't even pee without one of you stalking me," I snapped. "Don't blame me," Hunter said, hands up. "That's all Seth." "Hey!" Seth protested. "Dude, you literally tracked her scent to the library yesterday like some creepy bloodhound." Zane stepped closer, his voice dropping low. "In his defense, you smell amazing. Like rain and something wild. It's... distracting." Heat flashed through me at his words. This was my new reality—three devastatingly hot guys who wouldn't leave me alone. The scary part? I was starting to like it. **** Two years ago, when Dad got stripped of his Alpha title for breaking pack law, we were exiled to a crappy apartment on the wrong side of town. I thought my life sucked before, but this was a whole new level of hell. At academy, I'm the girl everyone avoids. Bad luck follows me everywhere, or so they think. Perfect target for bullies, especially my stepsister Cessy. She's everything I'm not—head cheerleader, gorgeous, popular. While she's the golden child at home and school, I'm her personal 'unpaid' assistant. Then everything changed on my eighteenth birthday. I found my mates. Not just one, but three. The Blackwood Trio: Hunter, Seth, and Zane. Hockey gods, gorgeous Alphas, the most wanted guys at school. Every girl dreams about them, every guy wants to be them. And somehow, impossibly, they're mine. Of course, nothing's ever simple in my life. Three mates means three times the drama, three times the possessiveness, and way more heat than I know how to handle.

When I was seven years old, my younger brother went into anaphylactic shock after sneaking a handful of peanuts. Outside the emergency room, my mother slammed my head against the wall over and over, her face twisted with rage. "If you had been watching him like you were supposed to be, this never would have happened! You should be the one with a ruptured stomach, not him!" After that, whenever my brother so much as caught a cold, my mother forced me to eat spoiled leftovers as punishment. I once prepared an elaborate feast. She flipped the entire table and made me crawl on the floor to lick it clean. When I said I wanted to study culinary arts, she poured hot oil over my hands. My father wanted to send me to vocational school to learn a trade, but my mother clutched my brother to her chest and wailed. "She destroyed her brother's health! She owes him a lifetime of service!" When I was fifteen, my brother's gluttony cost my father an important business deal. I took the blame without even being asked, and the furious client forced me to drink more than half a gallon of hard liquor. By the time I was sent home with a bleeding stomach, my father had already scolded my brother. My mother took out her anger on me instead, slapping me so hard my ears rang and my vision went dark at the edges. "You useless thing! You should’ve choked to death at that table! I get sick just looking at you!" I coughed up black blood. From my pocket, I pulled out a piece of sour candy that had gone soft and sticky. It was the only treat my mother had ever given me with a smile, back before my brother's allergic reaction. I put the candy in my mouth and swallowed it down with the taste of stomach acid. The candy was so sour it made my throat burn. Whatever came next, I just hoped I would not have to be my family’s garbage disposal again.