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Della

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me?” Everleigh asks, perching on the edge of my bed.

Next to my dresser is a bag of clothes and ointment that I desperately needed after waking up this morning with my back in agony. I have jeans, sweatpants, pajamas, T-shirts, and underwear.

I hadn’t wanted to see anyone, not even Everleigh, but at least her arrival prompted me to crawl out of bed and into the shower to wash away the memories of the last few days. The only thing the blisteringly hot shower has done is remove the grime from my skin. All the memories are still there.

“Your mansion is big, but I’d rather not hear you guys going at it like rabbits twenty-four seven.”

She blushes. “We don’t go at it like rabbits.”

I arch an eyebrow.

She looks away. “Maybe sometimes.”

Snorting, I lift my sheets. “I’m okay staying here. Well, not okay, but it’s just for a little while.”

“It’s probably safer. No one would find you here.”

I eye her curiously.

She continues, “I heard about what happened at the hospital. Have you spoken to her since… well, you know?”

My mind feels splintered, and it didn’t even cross my mind to tell my sister where I was until Professor Vincent told me Everleigh was on her way to see me. He must have told her.

“Since she sold you to Lawrence-Fucking-Wentworth?” I ask.

One corner of her mouth turns up in a half-smile. “You don’t have to include the fucking every time you say his name, you know?”

“It has a certain ring to it.” When she gets that slightly concerned look on her face as her eyes dip to a bruise on my jaw, I start talking. Talking about Lawrence Wentworth is fine. Talking about anything and everything else is fine.

Just not about that.

“You didn’t have to bring me a fruit basket.” I eye the massive basket overflowing with fruit. “Especially one that big. It’s excessive.”

“It’s to make you feel better. And it’s not that big.”

“That thing would feed a small country.”

She tilts her head as she studies the basket, chewing on her lip as I fight to control a sudden shiver that has nothing to do with the temperature of my room.

“Maybe it’s a little big,” she concedes. “The company did three sizes, and Cian went for the middle one. Kylian called them back and ordered the large one instead.”

“I’ll share it with the alphas.” Give it away more like. I’m not hungry.

“It’s okay if you want to speak to her,” Everleigh says softly.

“Speak to who?” I ask when I know exactly who she means.

“Mom. I won’t think?—”

“I’m not interested in speaking to her, Ever. She sold you. She could beg on her knees for forgiveness, and I still wouldn’t want to speak to her.”

“But—”

“Has she apologized to you?”

Silence.

“She’s not sorry. No. She’s just sorry that things didn’t go the way she wanted. She handed you over without hesitation. Hasn’t apologized even once, and thinks that because she brought me into the world, she gets automatic forgiveness. No . I know you think I’m being hard-headed or?—”

She hugs me, enveloping me in her sweet vanilla omega pheromones. “Thanks, Della. I’m the luckiest sister in the world to have you.”

Her hug doesn’t feel the same, and not just because she’s squeezing my back.

Maybe it’s me that doesn’t feel the same.

“Time to go home for more rabbit sex with your alphas,” I say.

She pulls away, and I release a silent sigh of relief. Instantly, I feel guilty for wanting her to go.

“Rabbit sex?”

“Yep.” I lie back in bed. “You heard me. I need to sleep. There’s a weird bird that woke me up at crazy o’clock this morning.”

“You do look tired,” she agrees, her eyes sweeping over my face.

Because I haven’t been sleeping, and it’s not because of a bird.

She kisses my forehead. “I’ll stop by again soon, K?”

“K.” I snag her hand and squeeze. “I love you.”

Her eyes crinkle with concern. “It’s not like you to throw around the L-word.”

“Maybe I realized I don’t say it often enough.” What happened to me taught me how quickly things can change, and how suddenly a life can be extinguished.

She smiles. “I love you, too. Get some sleep and don’t forget to use the cream for your back.”

“I won’t.”

I close my eyes and tuck my hand under my pillow, waiting for her footsteps to cross my room. The door creaks slightly as it opens, and I hear her making her way down the hallway.

Then I open my eyes and return to last night’s activity—staring at my rainforest view outside my window.

Downstairs, a muted female voice merges with deeper male voices. Everleigh is talking to the alphas.

A few minutes later, the voices fade, a door slams shut, and an engine hums.

The house is quiet.

I pull the sheets up higher, and I don’t move.

It’s been two days since I left the hospital, and I’m struggling to care.

About anything.

I huddle beneath the covers, pulling the sheets up to my chin as I gaze through my floor-to-ceiling window.

I haven’t been applying the ointment to my back like I said I would, and now it hurts too much to lie on it.

Muted voices drift up the staircase.

I don’t know much about the men in this house: my math professor, who brought me here, and my old fencing instructor, who delivers food I never eat. They hardly seem like teachers anymore. Everleigh said they asked Lucas Security to find me.

Why?

I briefly ponder the question, then I let it fade away. It doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters.

Knock, knock.

I throw the sheets back and drag on the big, fluffy robe that I found hanging behind the bathroom door. “ Coming .”

I take a second to prepare and fling the door open. “Yeah?”

It’s the gardener with the thick, dark beard who wanted to take me to Paris. He’s holding a tray of chicken, rice, and veggies. It smells delicious. So did the last one. That doesn’t mean I ate a single bite of it.

He lifts the tray in his hands. “Brought this for you.”

“Thanks.” I take the tray.

“It’s Xavier,” he offers before I can retreat into my room. “We, uh, didn’t get introduced.”

“Right.” I prepare to close the door with my hip.

“Your sister said she’s stopping by.”

I smile apologetically. “I think I might be coming down with something. I’m all sniffly and cold. Can you let her know maybe next week?”

A probing stare. “Sure.”

I close the door as he’s still standing there. Once I’ve gotten rid of the contents down the toilet, I place the tray of empty dishes on my nightstand, ready to leave it in the hallway in a couple of hours from now.

And I shrug out of my robe and crawl back under the covers, drawing the sheets up to my chin.

I’m in a home with men I don’t know, and I should be more alarmed by that than I am. I should care more about getting revenge on the alphas who hurt me, and yet I feel numb.

I wake up, and I don’t know if I’m still sleeping because I don’t feel awake.

I’m angry, but I can’t make myself get up. Or I shake, and I can’t stop. Sometimes, I lie in the dark for hours, struggling to breathe through the certainty that I’m dying.

The old Della would have hunted those alphas who hurt her and torn them apart with her bare hands if she couldn’t find a weapon.

But that’s the thing.

I don’t feel like me anymore