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Everleigh
I’m standing in Lawrence’s office in front of his desk. My heat is over and I’m still raw, my feelings more than my body. Mostly, I’m confused because I’m not supposed to be an omega. I just want my sister.
“You’ll spend every day attending to certain failings I’ve noticed.” Lawrence speaks with his head down, his eyes sliding across the paper on his desk, reading apparently. “I expect those failings to be corrected.”
My brow furrows in a frown. “I don’t understand what—”
“In one week, my staff will bring you to me for a thorough examination. Should you have failed to correct those failings, there will be consequences.”
I struggle to make sense of his words as he lifts his head.
He’s still the handsome blond-haired and dark blue-eyed alpha who scooped me up from my garden after he triggered my first heat. But now that I’m no longer lost to my emotions, I can think a little clearer. We spent the last eight days riding out my heat. We fucked constantly.
Endlessly.
I stare down at this man who left a bite on the junction of my shoulder and throat—a claiming bite that marks me as his. And I think he’s as much of a stranger as someone I might have bumped into on the street if Mom had ever let me wander them.
“Do you understand?” His crisp question is nothing less than an order. Lawrence is twenty-eight, at least according to the magazines that ran stories about the most eligible alpha in the city. But he talks to me like I’m ten and he’s fifty. Not like a man who has any feelings at all for the woman he claimed.
I still don’t know what he means, but I nod and say, “Yes, Lawrence.”
He doesn’t look any happier with my agreement. I focus on the large double windows that overlook a vast green garden, hoping the greenery will soothe my fractured nerves.
Until the sound of sharp rat-a-tat marching captures my attention. I twist my fingers together as I glance toward the partially open office door.
“They’ll have to start there,” Lawrence mutters.
I turn back and his eyes are on my fingers—my right hand in particular—and he’s frowning.
“Start—” The dark wood double doors blow open and three women in towering heels and slim black dresses stalk in, interrupting me.
Lawrence resumes scanning the document in front of him. “She needs more attention than I’d anticipated. Everything needs work: her hair, her skin, and her body. Do something about those hands of hers. I count at least three calluses. They’re going to need special attention.”
I don’t understand that Lawrence is talking about me until the women all swing to face me. As I’m processing this catalog of my apparent failings, Lawrence sighs, as if he’s exhausted by this monumental task ahead of him. “And get a trainer. I want her lean, not fat and not bulky. Cardio. Plenty of cardio.”
“Yes.” The taller, dark-haired woman with a pointy nose nods firmly. “I see the fat in particular on her cheeks.”
What the hell is going on?
I retreat from the women eyeing me so critically as my fingers flutter up to my cheeks, which I struggle to believe anyone could view as fat.
The three women prowl closer, circling me as they run their disapproving eyes over me. A blonde woman seizes my wrist and yanks it toward her to examine my hands. Her nails dig into my wrist, and I wince. She neither seems to notice nor care as her lips twist. “And these calluses… hmmm. I see what you mean.”
She releases me as fast as she seized me. I quickly back out of grabbing distance. In unison, the three women spin around, stalking back to the door. “Come, omega,” one barks at me, making me jump.
I don’t move. “But I—”
“Get out,” Lawrence snaps.
I get out.
Over days and weeks and months, they take Everleigh Jackson apart so she can be the Everleigh Wentworth Lawrence wants her to be.
Barked orders of ‘come, omega’ fill my every waking day.
I have my hair, skin, and nails made perfect. I try on clothes and shoes, have dancing lessons, and learn the art of small talk at parties. There are lessons for everything.
Endless lessons.
