12. Weller
WELLER
Blood soaks through Owen’s jeans, spreading dark and wet down his thigh. He studies the wound with the focus of a man cataloging treasure, pupils blown wide, breathing shallow. His fingers hover over the torn fabric without touching, like he’s memorizing the exact placement.
“She marked me.” Owen’s voice drops to that particular gravel pitch he only gets when he’s fighting for control. “Perfect angle. Just deep enough to bleed without hitting anything vital.”
None of us have felt anything genuine since Bianca’s graduation that didn’t come wrapped in Whitney’s manipulation. And now Bianca’s makeshift blade has cracked him open, reminded him what it feels like to exist instead of merely perform.
But then the implications hit me. The video she mentioned. The one someone sent her while we were incapacitated.
My jaw clenches.
“They ensured she would never question what she witnessed,” I growl. “Visual evidence that appeared irrefutable.”
“Whitney’s heat,” Freddie breathes, understanding flooding his features. “Fuck.”
“Naturally,” Tristan says, his usual mockery replaced by coldness. “They documented our violation to guarantee her complete destruction.”
“I’m going to make them pay,” Owen says, his pitch going deadly in that way that makes intelligent people step back. “Slowly. For putting those images in her head.”
Bianca witnessed what appeared to be us eagerly claiming her best friend, our bodies performing while our minds screamed.
She can never unsee that footage. I cannot retrieve it or explain it away. But I will make someone pay for every frame. Then I will worship her until she can’t remember her own name, let alone that it exists.
“I’ll help,” Tristan snarls.
“I’m going after her,” Owen announces, taking a limping step toward the hospital entrance.
I move before he can take another step, blocking his path. Tristan mirrors me, forming a wall between Owen and her.
“Stand down.”
Owen’s head snaps up. His eyes lock on mine, and I watch civility abandon him. Every muscle in his body coils tight, ready to unleash pent up suppressed violence. What’s left of his restraint has narrowed to a single point: reaching her.
“Move, Weller.”
The words comes out flat. Final. “No.”
Blood continues its steady rhythm onto concrete. He doesn’t acknowledge the wound. “She drew her own blood trying to escape us. I won’t allow that to continue.”
The memory burns behind my eyes. Bianca’s nails raking across her throat, desperate to claw away the glands that make her vulnerable to alphas. Her face contorted in animal terror when we appeared. The sound she made…
My control wavers.
All our planning. All this time telling ourselves we’d find a way to explain. And this is what we accomplished. We turned the woman we love into an animal scratching at her own flesh to escape us.
“She requires careful handling,” I force out, though every instinct demands I follow Owen’s lead. “Look, we can’t fuck this up any more than we already have.”
“Careful?” Owen’s laugh could cut glass. “You witnessed how our girl moved.”
Our girl. He’s not wrong. The Bianca we knew never raised her voice and called us to deal with spiders for her. This version is someone else entirely.
“She is perfect,” I murmur, unable to suppress the admission.
Freddie stares at me like I’ve disturbed him… probably the fact that my restraint is failing.
“Owen.” Freddie’s face is alight with grief. “She was terrified. She couldn’t breathe.”
“She drew blood without hesitation,” Owen says. “I want to know why she needed those skills.”
While we’ve been trapped in Whitney’s web, playing devoted mates to a woman we despise, Bianca has been learning to survive without us. The thought should comfort me. Instead, it fills me with rage.
She was never meant to be without us.
We’ve gotten scraps about her life for years. After we bonded Whitney, Winston cut us off. Wouldn’t take our calls. Wouldn’t see us. We were dead to him.
But Owen couldn’t let it go. I can still see him three months after the graduation party, cornering Winston at the hospital.
“Just tell me she’s okay,” Owen pleads, blocking Winston’s path to the driver’s door. “Please. Just tell me she’s alive.”
Winston’s jaw ticks. He’s furious. “Move, Owen.”
“I know you blame us. I know you think–”
“I think you fucked my sister over.” Winston sounds quiet and menacing. “I think you destroyed her and now she won’t even talk to me.”
Owen’s hands shake. “We never meant–”
“Meant what? To bond her best friend the same night I stayed up with her—to make sure she would be okay after she got hurt on your watch?”
“It wasn’t a choice,” Owen pleads. “You have to understand–”
“I don’t have to understand shit.” Winston’s control snaps. His fist connects with Owen’s jaw, a sickening crack that echoes off concrete. “You were supposed to protect her!”
Owen staggers but doesn’t fall. Doesn’t even lift his hands to defend himself.
“Fight back!” Winston screams, hitting him again. Blood sprays from Owen’s nose. “Fucking fight back!”
But Owen just takes it. Welcomes it. Like he’s been waiting for this punishment for months.
I watch from twenty feet away with Freddie and Tristan, every instinct screaming at me to intervene. But Owen’s eyes find mine through the blood and he shakes his head once. No.
Winston lands blow after blow. Owen’s knees hit the concrete. His lip splits. His eye swells shut. Still he doesn’t fight back.
“She loved you,” Winston chokes out, his punches getting weaker as exhaustion sets in. “She fucking loved all of you and you threw her away like garbage.”
Security guards arrive, pulling Winston off Owen’s motionless form. Blood pools on the concrete. Owen’s face is unrecognizable.
“Stay away from my family,” Winston spits as they drag him back. “Stay the fuck away from all of us.”
It took over a year before Winston would speak to us again. Months after that before he believed we’d never hurt her.
After that, all we got were basics. She’s alive. She’s safe. She’s healing. Nothing more.
We knew she’d come back for Winston. Had to. He’s been her anchor since they were kids, the one person who never let her down.
Unlike us.
The memory slams into me without warning. Bianca in Winston’s car, hurt and drugged, struggling to form words. The way she looked at me…
“Alp–”
Alpha. I understood what she meant, told her to rest, that we’d discuss it in the morning. I didn’t know then I was lying to her. By the time the drugs cleared our systems enough to think coherently, she was gone.
I had no idea it would be over five years before I saw those blue eyes again.
All this time telling myself she was better off without us. Dying a little more each day, going through the motions of a life that meant nothing without her in it.
The only thing that’s kept any of us breathing is knowing that someday, somehow, we’d find a way to tell her the truth. That if we died with her believing the lie, she’d carry that poison forever.
“I need to see her,” Owen says, and there’s desperation creeping in. Raw, ugly need that he can’t hide anymore. “I need to touch her. I need to explain.”
“She’ll run again,” I say, though it’s taking everything I have to stay logical when all I want to do is follow him. Chase her down and keep her somewhere safe until she listens.
“Then we catch her.”
I consider it for a second. Consider abandoning strategy and just taking what we need.
“We need scent blockers first,” I say instead. “Industrial strength. Complete suppression.”
Tristan nods slowly. “Our scents trigger her panic response. We can’t get close without them.”
“It still won’t be easy to get close. She despises us,” Owen points out, but he’s not moving toward the hospital anymore. Yet.
He’s right. But we’re running out of time. This might be our only opportunity before Whitney returns and makes everything impossible.
My mind starts calculating. Her patterns. Her vulnerabilities. But how do we force a conversation with someone who’d rather stab us than listen? How do we make her stay long enough to hear the truth?
I’ve spent years being careful, being patient, respecting boundaries that kept us from her. But what has careful gotten us? What has patience achieved except more years of agony?
Maybe it’s time to stop asking for permission.
“We have a week,” I announce.
They all look at me with sharp attention.
“Whitney and her father return from the medical convention next week. Once they’re back...” I don’t finish. Don’t need to. They all know what happens when Whitney realizes Bianca is here.
Everyone goes quiet.
“She’ll go after her,” Freddie breathes.
“Immediately.” I can already see it playing out. Whitney’s rage when she discovers her perfect lie has cracks. Her need to eliminate threats to her control. “She won’t let Bianca interfere with what she’s built.”
The bonds that chain us to her. What she calls intimacy but feels like torture. The facade of pack happiness while we die inside every single day.
Whitney will protect that at any cost.
“A week to break through all this trauma…” Tristan says, sounding unconvinced we can get through to Bianca in that time.
“She’s staying at the hospital,” I say. “Hasn’t left Winston’s side except for today. We know her routine.”
“Which means what?” Freddie asks. “Corner her in a hallway? She’ll stab all of us next time.”
The image shouldn’t appeal to me as much as it does. Bianca’s blade finding its mark, her eyes blazing with fury instead of dead emptiness. I’ll take her anger over her absence any day.
“We could try catching her outside her parents’ house,” Freddie suggests.
“If Whitney checks the trackers and sees us showing up at Bianca’s house...,” Owen points out, shaking his head. “We can explain away Winston at the hospital. We’ve been friends forever. But Bianca’s house? That’ll bring Whitney home with a quickness.”
“He’s right. We’re going to have to take more drastic measures,” Tristan says, already calculating. “I’ll get the penthouse ready for a conversation. Set the security feeds on a loop so if anyone checks, they’ll see business as usual.”
Right. One of the many leashes that monitor our every movement. But Tristan’s skills with technology have bought us privacy before.
We’re prisoners in our own lives, with just enough freedom to pretend we have choices.
I look at my pack—really look at them. Freddie’s lost weight, shadows under his eyes, hands that shake when he thinks no one’s watching. Tristan cracking at the edges, his arrogance replaced by exhaustion. Owen clinging on to what remains of his sanity.
We’re all dying. Have been since that night. Going through the motions of existence while nothing meaningful remains.
The only thing that’s kept us breathing is the hope that someday Bianca would learn the truth. That she’d understand we never betrayed her, never chose someone else, never stopped loving her for even a single moment.
But seeing her today, witnessing what all this time believing our lie has done to her...
“We need to remind her who she belongs to.”
Owen’s head snaps up, his eyes widening. “Now you’re talking.”
“Not chasing her through hospitals,” I clarify. “But you’re right. Strategy isn’t working. She won’t let us close enough to explain.”
For years, I’ve been the cautious one. The one who insisted we lay low, survive however we could manage, and find ways to get out of the bond that didn’t result in our deaths, one way or the other. I’ve held this pack together by the skin of my teeth but none of it has worked.
Watching Bianca claw at her own throat because our presence disturbs her? I need her suffering to end. Now.
“What are you suggesting?” Tristan sounds eager with anticipation.
I meet each of their gazes, letting them see the beast I’ve kept leashed for years.
“Whatever it takes.”
Owen’s smile is sharp enough to cut. “Finally.”
“We get the scent blockers,” I continue, my mind already working through possibilities. “Then we make sure she can’t run again until she hears the truth.”
Freddie’s expression twists like he doesn’t like the sound of that, but I’m past the point of trying to be civilized. We need results and we need them now. She’s covered in scars, stabbing people, living in the mountains like some kind of feral creature. Enough.
I want names. Addresses. I want to know who touched her, who threatened her, who made her feel unsafe enough to become a weapon. I want payment in flesh for every mark on her body caused by someone else.
I look toward the hospital, toward the window where Bianca likely sits hating us with every breath she takes.
It’s time to reclaim what was stolen from us. Whatever it takes.