SADIE
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking.
An hour ago, I left the hotel. Now, I don’t even know where I am anymore. Somewhere along the way, the bright campus paths disappeared, replaced by towering trees and narrow dirt trails swallowed by darkness. The only sounds left are insects chirping and leaves rustling overhead.
And tears won’t stop streaming down my face. I don’t even know how there are any left. My tear ducts should’ve given up on me by now.
My chest isn’t doing much better. Every breath scrapes against the ache Ezra’s rejection left behind, like someone carved a hole straight through me and forgot to stitch it back together.
The entire time, the only question replaying in my head over and over is: Why Paige? Of everyone Ezra could’ve chosen, why her?
Lycans rarely mate outside their own kind. They’re too proud of what they are, and too obsessed with keeping their bloodlines strong. Ezra might be an Alpha’s son, but he’s still an ordinary wolf.
So, did they do it intentionally? Did he pick Paige to spite me? Was that it?
I don’t want to think about how much of a fool I’ve been these past three years. I held onto this stupid hope that Ezra wouldn’t reject me because an Alpha’s son rejecting his true mate was a stain on his reputation. Even if he never loved me, I thought that would at least be enough to make him keep me.
Clearly, I was wrong.
My legs finally give out when my foot catches on something buried in the ground. I stumble forward with a gasp, barely catching myself before I faceplant into the dirt.
For a second, I just stand there, breathing hard. Then I turn around and glare at whatever decided I haven’t had a bad enough night.
A thick tree root snakes out of the ground.
"Seriously?" My voice cracks. "You too?"
I kick it.
"Why?" I add another kick. "Why do you want to hurt me too?"
Tears blur my vision.
"I didn’t even do anything to you." I kick the root again. "Can one thing not hurt me today? Can everybody just give me a..."
A rustle cuts through the trees beside me.
I freeze.
My breath catches in my throat as goosebumps spread across my arms. Slowly, my eyes scan the darkness between the trees, searching for whatever made that sound.
It doesn’t help that I’ve heard stories and they suddenly start jumping into my head now. I’ve read the missing stories of women attacked walking home alone at night. In this part of Massachusetts, more omegas are turning rogue than anyone wants to admit, picking up their victims.
They can’t go after shifted wolves and Lycans so they go after their easiest targets: Omegas. People like me.
A shudder runs down my spine and I swallow hard, turning around, and quickening my pace towards the path leading out of the woods and to my dorm.
Thirty seconds later, the sound of branches shifting reaches my ear. Then horrifyingly, footsteps, keeping pace with mine.
"Fuck."
My blood runs cold and I take off, my wine-soaked hair slapping against my back.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
I’m still repeating it in my head when a figure drops straight into my path. I barely have time to scream before I slam right into it, the impact sending me stumbling backward, and my heart lodging itself somewhere in my throat.
A growl rips through the darkness and my eyes finally adjust enough to make out what’s standing in front of me.
It used to be a wolf. Whatever it is now barely qualifies.
Its fur is gone in patches, skin stretched out and grey over a frame that’s more bone than muscle, ribs visible with every ragged breath. Its eyes are glowing yellow, too bright, locked onto me as saliva drips from a jaw that hangs slightly unhinged.
A rogue.
My body goes cold in a single wave. Every instinct screaming at me to move gets tangled up with the part of me frozen solid, and for a second, I can’t do either.
I manage one step back.
The rogue cracks its neck, the sound frightening in the quiet, and takes a step forward to match mine exactly. Mirroring me. Rogues do that and I remember reading it somewhere, some safety pamphlet I skimmed and never thought I’d need.
They toy with prey before they strike, and they’re fast. Faster than anything reasonable should be.
I can’t fight this. I know that with every bit of my cells and running isn’t looking much more promising, not with my legs still shaking from crying half the night.
I take another step back anyway, because it’s the only thing I have left to try.
That’s when the second sound comes — a heavy thud, something hitting the ground hard, and I spin just in time to see another shape burst out from the treeline behind me.
Another one.
Shit.
Panic closes around my lungs. Two of them. Two rogues, and no wolf, and my dorm is at least ten minutes away so nobody can hear me if I scream, and the last thing anyone said to me tonight was that I wasn’t worth keeping.
Is this it? Is this actually how it ends? Rejected and humiliated in a hotel room, then torn apart in the woods an hour later, like the moon goddess wants to make sure I understood the lesson completely?
If I’m going to die here, I decide, somewhere underneath the terror, I’m not going to just stand here and let it happen quietly.
My hand curls into a fist, shaking so hard I can barely feel my own fingers.
One of them lunges.
I scream, throwing my arms up uselessly, eyes slamming shut as I brace for teeth, for pain, for anything—
But it never comes.
Instead, a crashing thud shakes the ground, followed by a snarl that doesn’t belong to the thing in front of me. Something whooshes past just above my head, and a sickening crack to my left.
Slowly, I force one eye open. Then the other.
I gasp.
Standing a few meters away, one hand locked around the rogue’s throat, is a guy. Tall, well over six feet, a hockey duffel still slung across his back like he’d walked straight off the ice. Something about the frame tugs at my memory.
The rogue kicks wildly but it doesn’t matter.
His fingers tighten and another crack splits the night. The rogue goes limp, its body dropping to the floor and only then does my savior turn toward me.
My eyes go wide and then wider, because underneath the panic still hammering through me, something close to relief floats up when I see his face.
Trey.
It’s him. I want to ask what he’s doing here but that’s foolish to even think because he just saved my life.
His eyes catch what little moonlight filters through the trees, a faint greenish-gold striking even in the dark. His arms are thick with muscle, veins standing out beneath tanned skin, and messy dark hair falls over his forehead.
I’ve wanted to meet Trey for years, not because he’s the hockey team’s star captain, or because half of Boreal University has his name written in hearts somewhere.
But because he’s Ezra’s half-brother.
He takes one step toward me, jerking his head toward the path behind me.
"Get out of here."
The words snap me back to reality.
"I..." My voice shakes and I nod so fast. "Th-thank you so much for—"
But he’s already turning away, moving toward the second rogue still shaking on the ground near the tree line.
I don’t wait to see what happens next.
I bolt, and only look back once, just long enough to see Trey’s hand close around the second rogue’s neck, and hear the same crack echo through the trees behind me.