Page 9 of Sweet Torment

This feels like a trap. A trap I’m seriously considering walking into.

And fuck.

What will the alphas think when they hear about this? I can already picture their looks of horror perfectly in my head. And I have a mate now. What happens to Weller if I fuck someone else because I can’t help myself?

They’d be disgusted with me, wouldn’t they? Even if they understood why I did it…

“If I...” I pause, seriously wondering how the hell I got here. “If I do this, I want to see them first. All four of them. To confirm they’re free from Whitney and that any terms I set have been met.”

“That can be arranged.” He’s already standing, gathering his tablet, as if our entire exchange were nothing more personal than a sales pitch for a timeshare in hell.

“I’ll leave you to think it over,” he says, pausing at the door for just a moment before leaving, and the door closes behind him.

Once he’s gone, I let my fingers drift to Weller’s mark, tracing the edges of the tender bite.

I press my fingers into his mark, feeling a dull throb that resonates somewhere deep inside me. I silently beg Weller through the bond to tell me the right answer, to give me some sign that he can feel me trying to reach him.

Even though I already know his answer.

And it’s definitely not the one I’m considering.

3

OWEN

I keep my breathing deep and even, my body slack against the bed like I’m still knocked out by the sedatives they’ve been pumping us full of. My heartbeat betrays me on the monitor, but as long as no one’s watching too closely, I can keep playing dead while they scramble to fix this. We’ve been here for days. Maybe weeks. Time blurs when you’re being darted like a fucking animal and waking up restrained to a bed with your head stuffed full of cotton.

Weller and Bianca. Bonded.

Relief and jealousy war in my chest, neither winning, both cutting deep.

He’s free—finally fucking free—but I’m still here, still waiting, still wanting. I want her mark burned into my skin more than I want to breathe.

I haven’t seen Weller since it happened. They’ve probably got him strapped to a table somewhere, poking and prodding at the mark, trying to figure out how the fuck it took. Our pack’s been held together with the equivalent of duct tape, but without him, we’re just drifting pieces.

Christ, watching Bianca leap onto Weller’s back, her teeth sinking into his flesh while he stood there frozen… my heart nearly stopped. Couldn’t do a damn thing but watch. Would it kill her? Would it kill him? Would it⁠—

Fuck. The memory alone makes my cock throb under the thin hospital sheet.

Whitney’s voice has been my only confirmation they’re alive. Her endless bitching about how Bianca stole him from her and how life isn’t fair has been my only update. Never thought I’d be grateful for Whitney’s inability to shut her fucking mouth, but here we are.

The monitoring equipment beside me beeps faster as Whitney’s rotten scent fills the room, betraying the rapid heartbeat I’m trying like hell to control. Her scent has always been repulsive to me, but now I’m struggling to tolerate it at all.

Through slitted eyes, I watch her pace. Her heels strike the tile floor—click, click, click—like tiny bullets being fired. She’s a fucking wreck and looks like the Bride of Chucky after a week-long bender. Both hands are fucked up. One wrapped in thick bandages, the other in a brace. A bruise spreads across her cheekbone. Her hair hangs in greasy clumps, and she’s down to one fake eyelash that’s hanging on for dear life.

Beautiful. I’ve never seen her outside match her inside so perfectly before.

My girl is something fucking else.

The Bianca from before all of this bullshit was sunshine and softness. She apologized for everything, even when it wasn’t her fault. She wore pastel sundresses and blushed if you looked at her too long. She’d bite her lip when she got nervous and twist her fingers together when she felt overwhelmed. Her big rebellion was skipping class once in a blue moon, and even then she’d cave the second Weller started in with one of his lectures.

But this Bianca? Fuck. I’m starting to think we’ve only scratched the surface.

And it lights my blood on fire.

Same blue eyes I fell for, but now they belong to a woman who’d stab you as easily as kiss you. Maybe both at the same time if you piss her off enough.

It’s sexy as fuck watching her flip between vulnerable and wild, never knowing which one you’re going to get until she’s either melting in your arms or going for your throat.