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Cian looks at Della and then at me. I don’t meet his eyes. All my focus is on the bedroom door.
“Is that true, little omega?” he asks me.
I shake my head. “I just like to draw, that’s all.”
Lie.
Della snorts. “If you saw what Everleigh was drawing when she was eight, you’d know that wasn’t true. She should have gone to art school like she’d always wanted. Mom threatened to kick Ever out and not let her see me again if she went, because she could have. She submitted some of her drawings, and they offered her a scholarship. Full ride. They said for her to be completely self-taught and have talent like that meant she was a prodigy.”
Cian is still watching me. “Is that true?” he repeats. But he doesn’t raise his voice the way anyone else would if someone didn’t answer their question the first time.
It is true. But I never would have gone. Not if it cost me my sister.
“So she stayed at the house and drew on her own. My sister is brilliant, and Mom held her back all her life. I thought when we were old enough, we’d move out, get our own place, and then…” Della pauses. “And then Lawrence happened.”
The sound of muffled conversation continues downstairs. Lawrence is in the house, and if he knew I was here…
I’m creeping toward the door so I can hear better when Della says, “I know why you stopped drawing.”
Halting with my back to Della, I briefly close my eyes.
“I was working in the garden when I saw you in his office. He was sitting at his desk, and you were standing in front of it. You looked upset. I wasn’t sure what was going on until I saw you lay your right hand on the table and he cracked a wooden ruler on your knuckles.”
I say nothing, staring at the wooden door, my knuckles tightening in remembered pain.
“He did it so many times you stopped drawing, didn’t he?” Della asks. “The staff would talk. Even in the gardens, they’d say you used to draw, but you didn’t anymore.”
“Lawrence didn’t want his perfect omega to have calluses,” I whisper as my eyes prickle and burn. “Lawrence just wanted his omega to do what he told her to do. And that was all.”
“Then he should have bought an omega from Haven like the other rich bitch families”—Della’s voice is vicious—“not taken my sister.”
A faint smile ghosts across my lips. “I’m glad you think so, but…”
I’m not your sister, not truly, even though you still feel like mine.
“What else did he do to you?” Cian’s soft question surprises me.
I don’t look at him. “Enough.”
More than enough for me to want nothing to do with an alpha ever again.
Downstairs, Lawrence’s voice sounds clearly for the first time. Not enough to understand what he’s saying. But I hear it.
A memory smashes into me as hard as I crashed into the pool. That same feeling of drowning rips me from the present and into the past.
It’s the middle of the night and I’m in the shower, scrubbing my skin nearly raw to get rid of the scent of my pheromones. My heat is coming. If Lawrence realizes it…
The bathroom door flies open, and Lawrence’s frowning figure fills the doorway. He’s in navy PJs, the front chest pocket stamped with his initials in gold.
Through the glass shower screen, his nostrils flare. His frown melts away and desire takes its place. “Get out.”
It’s nothing less than an order.
I get out.
His eyes sweep over me, taking in my reddened skin as I stand naked, dripping water on the bathroom floor. I make no move to cover myself. He would only order me not to.
I brace myself for what’s coming. The same something that made me slip out of bed in the middle of the night to wash the first signs of my approaching heat off my skin.
