22. Then – Kennedy
Then – Kennedy
“ W ow.” Stepping forward, my eyes widen as I look around the field. “This is incredible.”
It’s like a meadow, on top of a cliff. There aren’t that many flowers here, but I bet it’s amazing in summer. Brett looks smug as he tugs me over, toward the cliff edge. “Come and see this view.”
My heels instinctively dig in as I protest. “You have no sense of self-preservation.”
“I’ll keep you safe.” He smiles at me over his shoulder. “Or don’t you trust me?”
His hand tightens around mine, but he relents. Dropping the basket he brought to the ground, he starts laying out blankets.
Not just blankets. There are cushions, candles, even lights.
I blink at the array. “You really prepared for this. Will we still be here when it gets dark?”
He holds out his hand. “I wanted to spoil my omega. Is that wrong?”
I can feel my brows furrowing at his words. “ Your omega?”
He doesn’t say anything. But his fingers curl in a clear beckoning motion. Silently, I take his hand and kneel down. “Brett…,”
“I’ve been thinking.” Brett kneels beside me. His fingers tug into my hair, unravelling my braid as he pulls the elastic free. “God, you’re pretty with your hair down, Kennedy.”
I shake it forward, into my face. “Thank you.”
His hand lingers in my hair. Tangling in it, his fingers brushing my neck. Holding it.
My breath catches. I’m not…. comfortable, I realize.
Not here. Not alone like this.
If any of the others were here—
“Kennedy.” His voice sharpens. “Pay attention.”
“Sorry.” I whisper it, staring down at my hands.
We won’t be long. And then we’ll go home to them.
“Forgiven.” His breath against my cheek takes me by surprise. When I turn, his lips meet mine.
He’s not gentle. His hand holds the back of my head, holding me in place as he moves his mouth over mine, his tongue thrusting into my mouth. When I try to pull away, his grip tightens instead of loosening.
Both of us are breathing heavily when he lets me go. Yanking myself away, my shocked eyes meet his. “What the fuck was that, Brett?”
They’ve never kissed me. Not ever. It was something – something to look forward to, something I’ve been waiting for, and he just… took it.
“Language,” he says softly. A reminder. “We’re having dinner with my parents, remember?”
Yes. The relief at that thought is staggering. When my face softens, he smiles again. My stomach begins to churn. “I’ve been thinking about the future, you know.”
“Oh?” My heart hammers against my chest. “
“Mhm.” He reaches for me again, pausing when I dip my head. “About whether a pack is the right decision for us.”
I’m still staring. “I can’t believe you would—,”
Wait.
“What?” My voice is high. “What did you just say?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “It’s just… I’ve been talking to my dad. About the future. And he’s right, you know. Alphas don’t need packs anymore, not really. I mean, look at your dad.”
I blink. Slowly. “Rick isn’t someone I’d choose to emulate, to be honest. I…,”
I don’t know what to say. “But they’re your brothers .”
But he’s there. His hands are on my face, gripping me, always that little bit too tight. Brett presses his forehead to mine. “Only Theo. He’ll understand. They’ll get over it. They probably won’t even care, not really. We can create our own mating bond, Kennedy. Right now. Here. And none of them will be able to argue when we go back.”
“ Let go of me —,”
His lips on my forehead, my cheek. “You were supposed to be mine. You know that, don’t you? I did, that first day. I saw you and I knew then—,”
I’m shaking my head, trying to push him off. “No. No – get the fuck off me .”
I am not quiet. I shriek it, directly in his face.
And his own expression darkens. “I won’t share you.”
This is dangerous. I look around, at the meadow, and the sky, and the mountains. Perfect, and beautiful. And isolated. My breathing deepens. “I want to go back. Take me back, please.”
Take me back to them.
Oscar was right. I shouldn’t have come—
But as I move to stand, his hand wraps around my wrist, squeezing. “Sit. Down.”
It’s not a bark. He can’t bark at me, not when there’s no mating bond in place between us. I don’t wear his bite in my skin, and he doesn’t wear mine.
Stiffening, I look him in the eyes. “I don’t want to bond with you.”
His jaw tightens. And he yanks, pulling me down. I lose my balance, and he follows me. “Stop – Jesus, Kennedy, stop moving—,”
My arms fly out. My fist catches him directly between the eyes. “Get. The hell. Off me.”
I’ll walk back. I’m not getting in a car with him.
But he’s not moving. He grows heavier, instead, his hands finding my wrists, pinning them as I twist. But he doesn’t move. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m giving you everything, Kennedy. You should be fucking grateful. Take the damn bond.”
I spit in his face. “Fuck you.”
And I watch, as his face… changes . His eyes grow darker, a red tint spreading across them as I freeze beneath him. His front teeth, his canines… they sharpen, before my eyes.
I don’t know if I say it or breathe it.
Feral.
The noises in my throat turn from anger to fear. They grow higher, and pleading. The sound of my shirt tearing barely registers, until the sharp agony laces through my neck.
He pulls away as my scream echoes, his mouth red with blood. My blood.
“Bite me.” It’s a snarl, his hand tangling painfully in my hair as he drags my head up to his own neck. “ Now .”
A bond. With him. Forever linked.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears as I take a breath. Shake my head.
More tearing. Ripping, my skin giving away. My agonized cry rises up into the air, there for nobody to hear. “ Bite me .”
The keening sound in my throat stutters. “No.”
I won’t.
I won’t.
Even as he bites, and tears, and rips at my skin. As his sounds fill the meadow, my own cries fading into silence.
Hours pass. His hands work over my skin. Pushing, tearing at my clothes. Moving lower. And it hurts.
He takes everything. Every single first.
And I count, every single time that he tears into me. Every time he asks me to bite him. And every time that I say no.
Three.
Five.
Nine.
Twelve.
Fifteen.
Seventeen.
He rears back and snarls. I keep my face turned away, toward the cliff. Toward the setting sun.
It stopped hurting a while ago. I can’t feel anything at all now. Only the grass beneath me, the blankets ripped and torn. The stones in my back. My blood, slicking the ground around us.
I’m going to die here. In this meadow, with him on top of me.
Get him off.
I shake my head blindly. An almost silent sob catches in my throat. I can’t.
You can. Or you die.
You deserve more than to die here, Kennedy. Get the fuck up.
His heavy weight slumps on top of me, his breathing in my ear. He doesn’t say anything.
My blink is slow. I think I’ve lost too much blood. The mountains waver in front of me.
My lips crack when I part them. “I’m dying.”
A slap that I can’t feel. Brett’s face appears in my line of sight. There’s no red now. Only the white of his eyes, that pale green that always made me wary. “No, you’re not.”
But he doesn’t sound angry now. He sounds scared.
I lick my lips. “They’re… going to know. When I don’t come back.”
His face crumples. Brett presses his forehead against mine. “Don’t be stupid. You’re coming back with me. Just bite me, Kennedy. You and me. Just us.”
Just us.
My eyes slip past him. “You’ll go to prison.”
He’s shaking his head, denial across his face, but I can see the dawning realization in his eyes. “No.”
“Yes.” I take a breath, and it sounds like bubbles inside my lungs. “I have an idea.”
His lips on my skin. “Tell me.”
I swallow. And I tell him everything. Everything he wants to hear. Everything he’s been asking me to give him, apart from my bite.
It’s always been you.
I was scared.
Just you and me.
They won’t understand.
“They’ll take you away,” I breathe. “They’ll separate us.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
The next words are harder. “I love you.”
His eyes darken. There’s still a tinge of red to them. “Say it again.”
Over, and over, and over again, until he believes me.
And this time, when he kisses me, I kiss him back. Just barely, but I can see the triumph in his face. The glaze. “What do we do?”
My eyes slide to the cliff edge again. This time, his gaze follows mine. “To… together.”
I cough, and it hurts. He stares at me, until comprehension crosses his face. A flash of anger. And then thought.
I take another breath. I’m running out of time.
He pulls his phone out, his fingers flying.
“What… are you doing?”
“Calling Theo. You’re going to tell him.”
My heart leaps. Theo—
But he doesn’t answer. It rings out, switching to his voicemail.
And Brett holds the phone out. “Tell them, Kennedy. So they know.”
A test. This is a test. I can see it in his eyes.
Prove it.
So I breathe, and then I smile. I stare into his face, and I make my words as clear as I can.
“Only you. I only want you. You and me, Brett. Just like we always planned. Okay? This is the only way we can be together without them interfering. You know I’m right. They don’t want us to be together. They’ll ruin it, like they always have. I don’t want any of them to ruin what we have.”
He starts shaking. “Do you mean it?”
“Together.” The pain is coming back now. It sharpens my mind, and I cling to it. “Take my hand, and we’ll jump. Nobody will ever separate us again.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
My eyes close.
“I don’t want you,” I say finally, into the phone.
It feels like I’m shattering my own dreams as I say the words. Words that will condemn me in their eyes.
“Any of you.” I wanted you so much.
“I only want him, do you understand?” I don’t want him. I never did.
“Just… leave us alone.” Don’t leave me alone.
“Don’t come after us.” Come for me.
“Leave us alone.” Don’t leave me.
Please, don’t leave me here.
When he ends the call, his eyes are bright. Almost feverish, as he holds out his hand. “Okay. You and me.”
It takes me a long time to stand. Brett frowns, as if I’m inconveniencing him. “I’ll just carry you.”
“No,” I rasp. “I want to… I need to do this. To prove it to you.”
It works. He smiles at me, as if I’m not ripped apart from his teeth. My body is broken. My soul ruined in four and a half hours and seventeen bites. “You and me.”
If this doesn’t work, I’ll be plunging over that cliff with him. The thought doesn’t terrify me nearly as much as staying here, in this meadow. With him. “Yeah.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“I love you.” I test my balance as the world around me tilts dangerously.
Keep it together.
I force one foot in front of the other. He paces ahead of me, impatient. “Hurry up.”
My head swims. “Coming.”
Steady.
He’s ahead of me, but only just. A few inches separate us as we cross the meadow until we’re standing on the very precipice of that cliff. Brett’s hair whips in the wind. My own hair sticks to me, congealed and clumped.
I can’t. He’s too strong. Too heavy.
Try. Don’t give up.
I only have a second. A single second to act, as Brett Rivers turns with a smile on his face, his hand reaching for mine.
My own hands fly up, slamming into his chest. And I shove him back with every single bit of the strength I’ve kept inside me for those hours. Strength I didn’t even know I had until he tried to beat it out of me and I refused to give it to him.
Eyes wide with shock link with mine. Brett topples backward, his mouth opening—
I don’t look. Don’t wait.
I run.
I spin, and I run. Through the meadow, my breathing labored and gasping as my feet fly over my shredded flannel shirt, stumbling over my shoes, my jeans. The blankets, rumpled and dirty, and the tipped lanterns, broken glass cutting into my feet.
And I don’t stop.
Into the woods, in a straight fucking line, the way that Max taught me.
If you’re ever being chased , he said, run straight. And don’t stop.
I dodge around trees, my feet moving until I fall, knees cutting open on the harsh ground.
It’s dark.
But I don’t stop, even then. I keep going, crawling, listening, as my head buzzes.
There are other predators in these woods. But I’d take them a hundred times over than face Brett again.
So I keep running.
For a long time. Long enough that I start to lose my own mind, slipping into dreams and nightmares. I scream for them, over and over again, begging, but they don’t come.
Nobody comes.
And when they do, when concerned faces hover over me and drip water into my mouth, I’m already past saving.
All I can do is scream from the pain. It burns, licks every part of my body with fire.
There’s poison in my blood, they tell me. With serious faces, and clipboards, and medication that feels endless as they pump it into me.
Bond poisoning, from a feral alpha.
And Charles Rivers, his face purple, screams at me as Rick shifts his feet uncomfortably and nudges him out of the door. As if he wasn’t the one hiding Brett’s feral genes, burying the paperwork with his money until I paid the price with my own life.
And still, they don’t come. None of them come.
Charles thinks he secures my silence with an offer to pay for my end-of-life care at a private Center. An offer so I don’t have to spend my last days in a cage, in a publicly-funded institution with too many patients and too little oversight.
So I can die comfortably, when my heart gives out.
But truthfully, I don’t give a rat's ass where I die. I won’t know either way.
But that voicemail plays on my mind like a loop, over and over and over again as I lay in that hospital bed. Theo’s face as he opened it.
Their absence says enough.
I killed Brett Rivers, sure enough.
I shoved him off that cliff and left him to die with no regrets for what he did to me.
But he killed me too.
So I lay in that bed until they tell me I can go home, as if it’s some sort of consolation when I don’t have a home at all. With conditions, and warnings, ten different types of medication, regular appointments with Doctor Abrams and a father that avoids me as if my disease might pass on to him too.
And I wait for my broken heart to stop beating.