Page 24 of Pack Ruin
The door opened before I could draw a breath to answer, and I forced a smile at the bottle-blonde, fifty-two-year-old society matron who glided in wearing jewelry that cost as much as my little mate’s Pack House would, and a blunt-toothed, greedy smile.
“No, I’m not decent, Stella. But then, neither are you.” I crossed to the wet bar. I knocked back three fingers of the Macallan Lalique, then poured two more. “I hear you’ve been kept waiting. I’m terribly sorry. How can I make it up to you?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she purred, her gaze taking me in, assessing me like I was a purchase she’d made, and she wasn’t yet certain I’d been worth the cost.
I was exactly that: a purchase, part of a business deal. Flor had said again and again that she was nothing, that she was a reject. If she’d known who I really was, under the thin veneer of manners and expensive clothing, she would never have claimed me. She was worth a thousand of me, ten thousand. She was honor, strength, determination, and fierce will wrapped in a perfect, small, fiery package.
I was a whore.
My mother’s whore, to be exact. My father’s greatest disappointment.
My sister’s only hope at escaping a living hell.
I lowered the lights so the healing wounds on my torso wouldn’t be visible to her weak human gaze. The camera in the corner of my bedroom stared with a baleful red eye, though, as I let my robe fall, and I knew at least one of my parents would be watching. Making sure I did what I was told.
Flor,forgive me,I thought, as the woman pulled up her skirts, revealing her bare sex. My cock didn’t even twitch, but that didn’t mean anything.Ididn’t mean anything, not to these women.
“I think you should ask forgiveness from down there,” she half-teased, half-ordered.
My wolf howled with rage and desperation as the stranger grasped my hair and pulled my face forward, between her legs. I swallowed bile, then opened my mouth, salty tears coursing from my eyes so quickly, it was almost all I could taste.
The mate mark on my tongue burned like acid as it touched the other woman. I swallowed bile and tears, and did what I had to, to save my sister. Even though it damned me.
Forgive me, Flor.
Please forgive me.
12
A Terrible Solution
FLOR
I’d never gone from bliss to pissed faster in my life.
Glen’s blue eyes crackled with intensity as he held me while I trembled. “What happened?”
“Cityboy decided to cheat on his true mate,” I gritted out, feeling blood where I’d bitten my tongue a few seconds before. I rolled to one side, pulling away from his hold and curling up into a ball as my wolf thrashed inside me.
“Are you sure?” Glen asked, and I directed a little of my rage at my newest mate.
“You think I’m lyin’?”
He shook his head, helping me sit up as we disentangled our limbs. The sweat and other fluids drying on my body were suddenly uncomfortable. I headed for the door, the feeling of an invisible knife stabbing into the mate mark Finnick had given me making me stumble. I stomped the rest of the way out of the cabin, picturing Finnick’s face under my feet.
Behind me, Glen scooped up a blanket and followed. When Brand appeared from beneath the shade of the nearest trees, Ishifted directions toward where he’d been waiting. Waiting for Glen to have a moment alone with me.
Thoughtful mate. Unlike— The mating mark flared again, sharper than ever. “Shitfire, that turtlefucking asshat! I will stew his damned balls for this!” I stopped at the edge of the water, panting from the barrage of pain. There was no escaping this feeling. I couldn’t run from it. The cold water might numb it, but if I tried to swim now, I’d probably drown.
In seconds, Glen was on one side of me, Brand on the other. I let them hold me up as I cried into the lake.
When I could speak again, my voice was hoarse. “I never thought… I watched my mama go crazy from this. Watched her scream and cry every time my fucker of a father screwed one of the pack’s other females. This is exactly why she made me promise not to let a true mate near me. Thisexactdamned scenario.”
“Little flower, don’t say that you regret our mating,” Brand murmured. “That would be a worse pain than I could bear.” Our bond pulsed with a quiet sadness.
“Oh, Bearman, no!” I turned to him and held on, letting my tears wet his chest. I felt Glen come up behind me, his warmth comforting me, and I reached back to pull him closer. Their closeness helped, the pain in my narrow bond to Finnick fading to a manageable, yet sharp flicker.
“How could he?” Glen whispered. “I know how he feels about you, Flor. That man wanted nothing more than to be yours. For you to be his.” His eyebrows flew up. “He’s got a mating mark, too, doesn’t he? This has to be agony for him, too. There’s something you don’t know.”
