Page 68 of Bitter Truths

The knife wavers in my grip, suddenly heavy. “That’s not possible.”

“It is,” Tristan says, all mockery has vanished from his face. “Every word is true. We were pawns in a game we didn’t know we were playing.”

Freddie continues. “After drugging us, they injected us with rut inducers...”

“Rut inducers? Why?” My brain struggles to process what they’re saying, trying to fit these new pieces into a puzzle that looks nothing like what I thought.

Owen’s face darkens. “Whitney was in heat when she arrived at the pool house... artificially triggered with drugs her father created.”

Forced proximity. Induced rut. Omega in heat.

She stole them from me.

Not with her looks, not with her fortune, not with her scent.

She stole them with her daddy’s help.

And I let her get away with it.

Rage burns through me, and murder flashes in my mind like a neon sign.

“At the beginning, I was still lucid enough to try and get out,” Weller continues. “I got to the door, but someone forced me back inside and locked us in from the outside.”

They were trapped. Physically trapped with her while drugged out of their minds.

“We were out of it for like two weeks,” Tristan mutters.

Two weeks. While I was in the hospital believing they’d chosen her, they were...

Oh god.

I go weak all over, and my legs wobble.

“While we were drugged,” Freddie says quietly. “They sent announcements, made plans. Destroyed our lives. Made it look normal.”

Everything that tried to kill me was a lie. Every sleepless night. Every tear. Every time I clawed at my own skin until I bled. Every day I spent hating myself for not being enough. All built on a foundation of bullshit and manipulation.

“Your fathers know?”

Owen growls. “They helped.”

Horror crawls up my spine like ice. “Can’t you break it?”

“We’ve tried everything...” Freddie says miserably.

“Why did the bond even take hold if you didn’t want it?” I ask.

They shift uncomfortably.

“The rut inducers intensified the drive to bond. The drugs killed all conscious awareness. The biological imperative to bite, to bond could not be overridden in that state. We did not have control, I promise you that. No part of us has ever wanted Whitney. Not a little, not at all. While we were out of it for those first few weeks, Whitney was... reaffirming the bond with her own methods. To strengthen the connection,” Weller says. “She admitted to it after the fact.”

I gasp when I connect the dots. My alphas were drugged while she… while she touched them. While she used them. While she kept them from me.

They were mine, and she violated them while I ran away.

I bolt for the bathroom. Bile burns my throat as I heave, knuckles white against the porcelain. When there’s nothing left, I stay there for a moment, breathing hard, trying to pull myself together.

I drag myself up, legs shaking, and wash my face. I rinse my mouth, trying to wash away the acid taste.