Chapter 4
Cold air knifed across Isla’s skin and snapped her awake.
She was still in a hospital gown, still soaked to the bone, and her parents stood over her, faces thunderdark with rage.
that fountain–were you trying to kill her so you could
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Regis barked. “You shoved Arabella into that fo crawl into Rhett’s bed in her place?”
“Listen carefully,” Viviana added, voice shaking with fury. “As long as we’re alive, that will never happen. You don’t hold a candle to your sister, and you never will. Stop dreaming.”
Their words hit like sleet, but for once Isla felt something snap inside.
“I’m the one who doesn’t measure up?” Her voice trembled, half frost, half fire. “If you two hadn’t lied for her, Rhett would never have looked at Arabella. You ripped my mate bond away and handed it to her like a gift–doesn’t that feel the least bit shame to you?”
Viviana’s cheeks burned red. Regis answered with a backhand that cracked across Isla’s face.
“Ingrate,” he hissed. “We gave you life. Everything you have belongs to us–if we want to hand it to Arabella, we can. Open your mouth again and see what we take next.”
The door banged open. Rhett strode in, brows drawn tight.
“Take what next?” he asked. “What truth are we talking about?”
Regis flinched, then forced a grim smile. “Nothing except this ungrateful girl refusing to admit she pushed Arabella. We’re… disciplining her.”
“Exactly,” Viviana chimed in. “She still won’t own up, and we’re at our wits‘ end.”
Rhett turned a glacier cold stare on Isla. “Still denying it? Fine. Lock her in the morgue. When she figures out how to apologize, she can come back.”
Regis and Viviana brightened as it it were a brilliant solution. They waved over a pair of Beta guards, who hauled Isla to her feet.
She didn’t fight. Fighting only made the punishment worse.
The morgue reeked of disinfectant and chilled metal. When the door clanged shut, darkness swallowed her. Isla wrapped her arms around herself and shivered so hard her teeth rattled.
Somewhere in the black she remembered an abandoned pack house in Echelon territory–the stormy night Rhett had wrapped her in his jacket, pulled her close, and whispered, “I’m right here. Don’t be scared.”
The memory stung like salt on an open wound.
Hours crawled by. Hunger gnawed. Cold numbed her fingers until she couldn’t feel them. Just when she was drifting into a fog, the door swung open and harsh light flooded in.
Rhett stepped inside, expression granite hard.
“It’s been twentyfour hours,” he said. “Have you learned your lesson?”
Her throat was raw, voice a rasp. “Yes. Every last one.”
He seemed satisfied. “Good.”
Isla pushed herself upright, legs shaking as she followed him out. In her head, a single broken confession looped over and over: My real mistake was believing you ever meant a single promise you made.
Chapter 4
