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Sophie crosses her arms. “I am dragging you out of this dump one way or another. Have you seen the state of the damn place? You can’t keep doing this. Go on, glare at me. I’m not intimidated by Omegas. Be angry, at least it means you are feeling something. I can cope with an angry sister but not one who is slowly dying. I won’t visit your grave too.”

I become ashen. “Beau and Evan don’t have a grave.”

“Bitch, it was a metaphor.”

“Smartass.”

I glance through the open window at the branches of the oak, my Dream Tree, where I scattered Beau and Evan’s ashes.

My head throbs at the sharp sunlight and humid heat. I take another drink of the coffee to give myself time to think and clear my head.

Then I fiddle with the fraying hem of the hoodie.

“How did you keep going?” I ask, quietly. “After Mom and Dad bonded with that sorry son of a bitch General? He took them halfway across the country to his army base. They didn’t come back for the funeral.”

“They didn’t even visit you in the hospital.” Sophie’s expression hardens. “I don’t call them pack anymore.”

“Sophie, you don’t have to…”

“Beau and Evan were like my brothers.” Her breath hitches. “After our first pack ditched us when I was still at Cedar Ridge, you and the Monarchs took me in. You became my family.”

“But your dream was to become a vet, and we couldn’t afford your college fees.”

Guilt squirms in my stomach.

“You were barely out of college yourself. I didn’t expect you to.” Sophie hesitates like she is working out how to voice something that she’s long held onto. “It really sucked to be abandoned like that. It hurt, and it also hurt to lose something that you know I had dreamed about since I was a kid. But you survive. You heal day by day. And you will too. You don’t see it, but you already are.”

I hold Beau’s jacket up to my nose, desperately trying to breathe in his scent. This time, however, I can’t even pretend that I can.

“I don’t want to leave them behind,” I whisper.

“You don’t need to. They will always be with you. But you’ll also find a new journey and dream like I did.”

“I won’t. I won’t ever forget Beau and Evan.” I caress the inked butterfly on the back of my neck.

“No one is asking you to,” Sophie replies. “But we do need to talk about your heat.”

Shaken, my gaze snaps to Sophie’s. “I’m not talking about it.”

“Tough because it has been a year, and the hospital told you that after your Shattered Bond Syndrome it would hit at the end of this month. They sent you the date. I noted it down. Did you reckon I’d just forget? It’s about three weeks away. We must plan…”

“No!” I hurl the paper cup at the wall, and hot coffee splatters across the sage green wallpaper.

Anxiety crashes through me in a tidal wave.

The memory of fever washes over me…curled on the floor of my half-decorated nest room, screaming in pain, weeping, alone in a deep, primal way I have never been before, as my bond snaps.

I can’t go through that again.

I can’t…

Losing them…

Alone…

“Breathe, Paige. That’s it, in and out. I’m right here.” Someone is talking to me. I grab onto their words as a lifeline. I take desperate breaths of their mountain laurel scent, which is like grape soda. It is familiar and reassuring. My breathing slows, and finally, I am able to take in gulping lungfuls of air. “You don’t have to talk. Just listen to me.”

My breaths are still coming too fast, catching before the last one has finished.