Page 13 of Our Deceptive Heat

But my plan? I’ll find another way. I have to.

The magnitude of what I’m giving up stuns me. Am I really prepared to put myself at my father’s mercy just to save their pack?

Yes.

My resolve firms and hardens.

I just wish I could see Envy and Mako once more. Instead, I silently go and gather all my belongings. All my notebooks, my clothes. I leave nothing behind.

I pause at the door to the hotel, looking at the sleeping alphas who have turned my entire life upside down.

They have nowhere to go but up. If they stay with me, I’ll just drag them down. This is the right thing to do.

In the lift, I find a video message from Lia. I watch a portion of last night, the Fate pack laughing and celebrating, but all I can see is me staring at them with my heart in my eyes.

Not one of them looks my way.

That’s just the proof I need.

I pause in the lobby, pulling my phone out again and calling a driver to come and get me.

For the first time in my life, I don’t know where to go. All I know is that it’s over.

Last night slams into me again, and I press my fist to my mouth, holding back a sob. I really fucked everything up.

They’re better off without me.

12 Months Later

Every time they call,I decline it. I read the emails and send them to be answered in the barest sentences by my assistant. I’m out when they come calling and no one knows where I am. I shut down all lines of communication, and I rip my heart into a million pieces.

I am ruthless. For them, I am the destroyer of my world.

For a whole year, I am nothing but a ghost of who I was. A shimmering shade of Auryn Raines. There is no laughter, no happiness. The songs I play when I’m alone in my house break my heart. I don’t enjoy the taste of food, alcohol just brings the memories on, and company is miserable.

I loathe myself.

But I keep making my plans, coming up with new ones to help me escape the ever-increasing attention of my father. If worse comes to worst, I’ll run to Kelly and pray my cousin has the strength to save me from him.

I am a ghost to Fate’s Choice. It’s a cowardly act, but I don’t have the strength to turn them down. I don’t have the strength to keep this resolve.

Because I love them.

Because I can’t have them.

We all keep too many secrets, and I can’t afford for my secret to come out. And that pack makes me weak.

One year. Three hundred and sixty-five days of a mundane grey world that is so tedious and boring, I wonder what I’m even doing here.

I exist for one year in hell.

Until, like a dark rider on a horse of vengeance, they come calling with a demand I can’t refuse. Because I owe them. And I can’t say no now anymore than I could back then.

In the rain, I stare at the ghost, his eyes ablaze with gold determination, with fury, refusing to leave, refusing to go without me. The silver of the world and the sound of the rain helps to make us feel like we’re all alone.

But he’s bleeding colour into my world. He’s broken through the shell of numbness. Now I can feel. He’s infecting me with all the things I’d locked away. Why couldn’t he stay away? I knew they’d come, eventually. I’ve been waiting. They would never give up so easily.

But why now?