Page 3 of Drown My Sorrow

Not anyone, least of all these three amazing alphas.

I have no right to have these guys doing this for me.

But the last thing I want to do is wash Beau’s ginger scent off me.

The longer the minutes stretch, the more I withdraw. We all get very silent and very lost in our own minds until, finally, those three hours are up.

I stand tense, watching them leave, biting my lip hard enough that I taste blood. Because I don’t want them to go. I want to ask them to stay. I’d beg if I let go of my pride.

Shale looks back at me, holding my gaze through the window.

They said they were mine. But I know better. I wait until they’re gone and turn, but I turn too fast, and my leg twinges, sending me stumbling into the wall.

I curse and cry as I sink to the ground, stretching out my wounded and scarred leg to the side.

I always get emotional after heats, but then, every time I have one, I remember everything. All my past comes back, including him. I can’t pinpoint a moment when it all went wrong. There were so many, but the first was the night my father and sister died.

A close second was the day I met my scent match.

And just after that is the day my mother left me.

The door opens, and I tense until I hear the softer footsteps. It takes her a minute to find me.

“Ah, damnit, Aspyn, what happened? Did they hurt you?”

I shake my head in denial. “They never hurt me!” I sob. “They were perfect! I don’t deserve how kind they are.”

“No one would ever call that pack kind,” Nat says dryly.

Natalie has curly red hair and brown eyes. She’s not pretty but is striking. Still, for this small community, she is too loud and opinionated to fit in here; just as I am an outsider, so is she, but then, so are my guys.

No, they aren’t mine.

The thing that unites us all is we don’t care about being outsiders. Not here. We’re sisters of the soul, forged in loneliness and isolation.

Natalie is my ride or die. When my mother brought us here and disappeared into the night, it was Natalie who showed me how to make money and who kept me fed and under a roof.

She holds out her hand, and I grip it, swinging me up on my good leg and helps me to the kitchen table, where I sink gratefully into a chair. She lets go of me and goes into my bedroom, returning with my cane. I shake my head, but she pushes it into my hands.

“Just use it. You’ll do more damage if you fall.”

I slide her a cup of coffee, refusing to acknowledge that Shale must have known Nat was coming over because he’s made her coffee exactly the way she likes it, and wrap my hands around my own. She sits across from me and levels me with a glare.

I fidget until I’ve got no choice but to meet it.

“What?”

“Your heats only come every six months or longer. Why them? Why not find someone else?”

I shrug and fidget. I don’t want to tell her that the moment I saw them, I knew they were my scent matches. Why didn’t I just tell her when I had the chance? Fear, that’s why. I wish I wasn’t afraid of everything. And maybe, also, I haven’t told her because I can’t even say the words out loud to myself.

“There are plenty of tourists-”

“I can’t guarantee any of them are safe, Nat. Besides, the pack isn’t so bad. They take really good care of me.”

“They are thugs and drunks and just plain trouble. It’s like you’re living in a rainbow world. Those idiots hate everyone on the planet except you.” Nat says it, but I think she’s trying to test me because I know she likes them and respects them.

I shrug self-consciously. It’s true the pack does have a terrible reputation. Their violence and aggression and drunken pranks have earned them a very feared respect here in White Shore.

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