Page 81 of Traded

Catching the edge of my reflection in the mirror, I lean in. My lips are chapped and pale. The circles beneath my eyes are dark enough to disappear into. Even my hair looks limp, the red muted.

I look like a shadow. Some freaky, fucked-up wraith.

No wonder Benji noticed.

My hands grip the marble basin, the bath running behind me as I duck my head. The bark nudges me, pushing me tomove. To go downstairs, to put on a performance and make him believe everything’s alright.

But I’d have to behave beneath Liam’s assessing gaze, fighting to make myself small enough that I disappear entirely.

Or sit opposite Jonas and watch him trynotto watch Lauren while failing miserably. Maybe he’d ignore me completely. Or he’d pass the salt like we’re barely acquaintances, while I smile for everyone else’s benefit and feel dead on the inside.

My smiling alpha doesn’t smile at me anymore.

He smiles for Lauren. For the pack. For the team and the fans and the cameras.

But not for me.

He looks past me if he’d rather not look my way at all. As if my very existence makes him uncomfortable, when it should be the opposite.

I don’t find any comfort in Jonas anymore. And I’m certain he doesn’t find any in me. He and I… we’re not working anymore.

My alpha isn’t mine anymore.

A wound slashes open around my ribcage that I can’t reach. Can’t stem. Hemorrhaging three years of memories and the life that I thought we were building together, only for Jonas to stop trying without bothering to tell me.

My hand searches out my chest, flattening over my stuttering heartbeat.

I still have Liam and Carter.

Liam is still trying, if his fucked-up plan counts. But he’s at least trying to keep us together. To keepmetogether, even if I want to shred his face for it.

At least he’s still fighting to keep me around. I’m not sure Jonas would notice if I disappeared from their lives tomorrow.

What does it mean for me if one of my pack no longer wants me in it?

I don’t know what my own relationship looks like anymore. What my future looks like. There’s only here, and now, and Liam’s orders weighing me down until every step feels like dragging cement.

Tears burst free as if I’ve been collecting them up, my body keeping them hostage through weeks of empty existence. Sinking down beside the bath, I bury my head in my arms and let them all go, where nobody can see me or judge me or tell me to stop.

Here, I am not an inconvenience.

At some point, the bath almost overflows. I swipe my face with unsteady hands, closing off the water and slipping beneath the surface until all I can hear is the muffled sound of my own pulse.

What the fuck do I do?

My world is imploding. Jonas has made his choice, and it isn’t me. Liam… my mind skitters away from any thought of him. And Carter is on the verge of losing everything we’ve worked for. Everything he everwanted.

And in the end, it all comes down to one thing.

The season.

I have to make it through, same as everyone else. If I make it to the end of April, if Liam stops pushing me down into submission, maybe I can talk it through with them. Find a way forward for all of us before playoffs begin.

Even…my heart stutters again. Even if that means Lauren, too.

My face breaks free of the water, chest expanding on a gasp.

I need to see out this season. All of us do.