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I was finally going to be free.
Instead, Dad forced me into a damn prison at a lake house with some of hisbusiness friends,who made appearances at my bedroom door late at night. I couldn’t say no or risk Dad’s scolding and punishment. I’d had no freedom, no free will.
And this guy thought he’d had it fucking bad.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I slammed my hands against his chest again, putting all my hatred for Dad and annoyance for Calder into the push, and shoved him against the table, so hard that he broke it.
“I thought you wanted me pregnant because you liked me,” I said, hurt in every word.
While sitting at the bar and talking to Maxine, I had begun to accept this little kink that I had because Calder sorta, kinda had it too. I’d thought that maybe being back in Durnbone with my four best friends would be a good thing. Maybe these guys would take me into their arms and show me the love that Dad never had.
But I was wrong.
Calder just wanted revenge. And the others … I didn’t know their intentions yet.
“I hate you,” I said between gritted teeth, then stormed out of the pub.
I continued on the path back toward their pack house while they—even Calder—trailed after me. Crossing my arms, I gritted my teeth and refused to cry.
Deep down inside me, this felt like rejection.
I couldn’t explain it, but Gaian’s sister had once been rejected by her mate. I had watched her cry into Gaian’s arms for days upon days. Who the hell knew if these guys and I had that kind of connection? But this hurt. Bad.
It was always about Dad.
Since the moment I had seen Calder at the party the other night, he had treated me as if I was his object or property. Calder only wanted me to get back at my dad. He didn’t really wantme,and if he did, he sure didn’t act like it.
14
the nervous one
darius
“Don’tyou think they’re being a bit overbearing?” Gaian asked the next morning during our run.
Calder and Thayer had run together earlier this morning, and now, they were watching over Sina while we ran with the rest of the pack.
A thin layer of sweat covered my bare chest. I breathed heavily and pulled my dreads back with an elastic to keep them out of my face, then continued following him through the forest, around the path we always took.
I didn’t have the same connection with Sina as the other guys. They had all been obsessed with her in high school, but I hadn’t been as forward with my crush on her. Sina and I hung out all the time without them, and she came to me for advice about her relationship with the others. Part of me had always sorta felt left out back then.
But now … things had changed.
“Calder and Thayer aren’t afraid to be fucking psychopaths with her,” I said uneasily.
But then again, maybe they had a reason to be overly possessive. I hadn’t headed over to Sina’s house early the morning of her eighteenth birthday the way that Calder and Thayer did, only to be attacked by goons that her father had hired toexterminateus. We had been at war with them ever since—without Sina’s knowledge.
“I don’t want her to leave ever, but they might push her away,” I said truthfully.
I thought back to last night when we had followed her back from the pub and she had cried her eyes out because Calder was being an asshole to her, like usual.
“They will,” Gaian said, slowing down as we neared the house.
Sina lay outside on a picnic blanket in a skimpy little baby-blue bikini, trying to soak up as much sunlight as she could. I gazed at her ass falling out of her bottoms and found myself tensing when she looked over at us. Calder and Thayer sat outside on a couple of logs, shit-talking with each other.
After hopping up from the blanket, she hurried over to us, her barely covered tits bouncing. She stopped in front of us and crossed her arms over her chest—a sight that I knew Gaian wouldn’t be able to resist.
Chewing on the inside of her lip, she let her gaze fall to my sweat-covered chest, then over to Gaian. “Do either one of you want to do me a favor?” she asked, rocking back on her heels and glancing over at the other two.
