Page 150 of Bitter Truths

My stomach lurches.

“You’re going to make me come while they watch and applaud,” Whitney says in a saccharine voice.

She points the baton at Owen with her good hand.

“And you’re going to convince me you love it. Because if you don’t...”

The threat hangs in the air between us.

“That video of Bianca? It’s going viral. Every alpha in the city will know exactly where to find her. And exactly how much fun they can have breaking her.”

The thought of other alphas seeing Bianca naked, seeing her marked by us, wanting to claim what’s ours...

“No.” Owen’s voice is barely human. “You fucking won’t.”

“Those marks on her body?” Whitney continues with a sickening satisfaction in her voice. “They’ll know she likes it rough.”

“I’ll kill you,” I promise, and I’ve never meant anything more in my life. “I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt her.”

The others have the same murderous expressions on their faces, and if she made the mistake of releasing us right now, we’d end her—consequences be damned.

Whitney laughs, and the sound is a nail in my eardrum.

“I could have her arrested. Committed. Disappeared. And there’s nothing any of you could do to stop me.”

Footsteps on the stairs cut through the suffocating tension. Montgomery appears, medical bag in hand, looking perfectly composed despite his daughter’s blood-splattered appearance.

“Whitney,” he says with barely concealed irritation. “What happened to your hand?”

“Fix them,” she demands. “Fix them right now.”

Montgomery’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. He sets down his bag, pulling on latex gloves like this is a normal office visit.

“The injections can wait until you explain why you look like you’ve been in a street fight.”

“I don’t have time for this! They’re⁠—“

“Fine, Whitney.” His voice cuts through her hysteria like a scalpel. “Sit down. Be quiet. Let me work.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but something in his expression makes her snap it shut.

“We can’t have variables affecting tonight’s presentation,” he says with detachment, approaching with a syringe filled with clear liquid.

He draws closer with the injection, and I know our window of clarity is about to slam shut.

But as the needle slides in and the chemical poison floods my body, I hold onto one thought.

Whitney thinks she’s won…

28

BIANCA

Night air bites at my skin as I creep through the woods toward the Montgomery estate. A small bow presses against my back, arrows jostling quietly in the quiver strapped to my thigh. Dead leaves crunch under my boots no matter how carefully I step.

Fuck stealth when the whole world is working against you.

Hours of practice until my fingers bled, my arms shook, and my shoulders burned. All so I could protect myself. So I could fight back.