Page 31 of Bitter Truths

But there’s Whitney’s name, bright and cheerful among the alerts.

Whitney

OMG B!!! You’re not going to BELIEVE what happened!!!

My finger hovers over the message. A chill seeps through me. Whitney never uses that many exclamation points unless she’s about to drop a bomb.

I tap the message open, still holding my arm at the awkward angle to maintain the signal.

Whitney

So graduation night I went into HEAT! Out of nowhere!! Daddy thinks all the excitement and stress of the day plus being around so many alpha scents must have triggered it... anyway, the guys helped me through it and WE BONDED! All four of them!! I hope you’re not mad, B. I know you had a little crush but that’s just biology for you! There are TONS of other alphas who would be interested, don’t worry!

The words swim on the screen. I blink hard and read them again.

The guys helped me through it.

WE BONDED.

All four of them.

What the actual fuck?

My vision tunnels. The phone screen wavers like I’m looking at it underwater.

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

A new notification pops up—a group message thread with dozens of numbers I don’t recognize. My finger moves without conscious thought, tapping it open.

Dr. Robert Montgomery is pleased to announce the bonding of his daughter, Whitney Elizabeth Montgomery, to Weller Dashwood, Tristan Barrett, Frederick Miller, and Owen West. The pack bond was formed during an unexpected heat cycle. Ceremony announcement to follow.

The formal language makes it worse somehow. Official. Permanent. Real.

Names I don’t know flood the thread below—congratulations, excitement, celebration. Like it’s some fairy tale ending instead of the destruction of everything I thought I knew.

How could they? How could they fucking do this?

These are the same guys who’ve been part of my life since I was three years old. Winston’s best friends since kindergarten. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember, and what did I do? I waited. Like some pathetic, desperate little girl, I waited for them to make a move. To want me. To pursue me.

All these years of secret yearning, of hoping, of thinking maybe someday they’d see me as more than Winston’s baby sister. What was I waiting for? Some magical moment when they’d suddenly realize I existed?

God, I’m so fucking stupid.

And they didn’t call. Didn’t text. While I spent three days going out of my mind with worry, wondering why they’d gone silent, they were… fuck. I can’t.

Did they even think about me at all? Did it even cross their minds that I might be waiting to hear from them? Or was I that forgettable, that easy to just... erase?

The silence makes sense now. The alphas got a working omega. They don’t need me anymore.

Are men that controlled by their dicks? That desperate for the nearest available place to stick it? I thought they were different. I thought that what we had meant something. I thought they were better than every other asshole with a knot.

They’re worse. I fucking trusted them wholeheartedly. With every cell in my body.

The betrayal burns through me. Not just that they bonded with someone else. That they bonded with her. Whitney. She knew. She fucking knew how I felt about them and took them anyway.

Another message catches my eye, an unknown number.

My finger moves to open it.