I slept restlessly and woke up feeling like my head had been stuffed with cotton. It was what I thought having a hangover would be like, except without all the fun parts that came beforehand. It wasn’t even like I’d earned feeling so terrible. Judging by my tangled sheets and shredded pillow, I had just been sleeping rough—really rough. Nightmarish images faded along with the last remnants of sleep. I couldn’t remember the dreams that had haunted me—only that they were filled with monsters, all of them out for my blood.
Somehow, I knew that training to fight with a vampire wasn’t going to make it any better.
I checked the time. I had promised to meet Owen in less than an hour, but if I made it quick, that should leave me just enough time. And I’d put this off long enough.
It felt like forever before my phone powered on. I waited until everything had lit up and counted the missed calls from my mom. Seventeen. Crap. It was past time for this. I dialed slowly, swallowing back the anxious feeling in my gut. It rang only once before the machine picked up. Mom’s familiar cheer was like a dart lodging straight in my guilty heart. It had been over a week since I’d been taken and brought here to Paradise, and I still hadn’t called…
The beep sounded and I started talking, secretly glad for the machine. Maybe it would break the ice. “Hi, Mom. It’s me, Charlie,” I added, feeling like an idiot for even saying that part. “I know I haven’t checked in but Regan says Dad contacted you … Anyway, I’m okay—”
“Charlie? Hello?” The click of the receiver being snatched and my mom’s shrill voice made me wince.
“I’m here, Mom,” I said.
She sighed so loud it created static over the line. “Thank God. Did they hurt you? William said you were unharmed but I had no way of knowing—”
“I’m fine, I promise. They haven’t hurt me,” I told her. Yet.
“Do you have a place to stay? Are you eating?”
“Yes and yes. Mom, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked before she could throw out her next barrage of questions.
The line went abruptly silent and then her voice came back, notably smaller. “I’m sorry, baby. I really am. I should have told you. I just didn’t think there would ever be a reason to. I didn’t think you’d ever have to go there.”
“Did you ever stop to consider maybe I’d want to come here?” I ask, my voice a little harsher than I’d intended. “They are my family,” I added.
Mom was silent and I hated to think I’d hurt her feelings—but it had to be said. She’d lied. For my whole life. And that lie was partly the reason I was here now, thrown into this unaware.
“Did you know about the competition?” I ask.
“I hoped…”
“Don’t lie to me, Mom. Not anymore. There’s no point.” My voice sounded dull even to me, but tears pricked my eyes. This is why I’d put off the call. I’d been afraid she’d known everything—including that I’d be forced to fight my own sister.
“Yes,” she said in a strangled voice. “I’d hoped if I kept you hidden, they’d overlook it or give up and just give it to Regan,” she said.
I pressed my mouth together until my teeth hurt and blew a hot breath through my nose. “Did you ever think I might want to be alpha?” I asked quietly. “Or did you assume, like all of the others, that I wasn’t capable of winning?”
“Charlie, no,” she insisted quickly—too quickly. “You are very capable but, well, I’m sure you’ve seen by now how different things are in pack life. It’s not like your life here. You have so much weight on your shoulders. As alpha, your life would never be your own again.”
“How would you know?” I asked, my voice raising and taking on a nasty edge that I hated even as I used it. “You aren’t welcome here. You have no place in the pack so how could you possibly know what it’s like?”
“That’s not fair—”
“Neither was lying to me. Or keeping me from my father and sister. You had no right then and you have no right now to decide what’s best for me,” I said.
She started to say something but I cut her off. “I have to go train for the competition now.”
“So, you’re staying?” she asked quietly and I could almost hear the tears running down her cheeks. I bit my cheek against the guilt that throbbed.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it turns out.”
I hung up before she could respond and powered the phone off again. I slipped it into the nightstand drawer where it’d been before just as a lone tear tracked down my cheek and dripped off my chin. I sniffled once and steeled myself against feeling anything else or shedding any more tears.
My mom and I had never spoken to each other like that before—but she’d never lied either. Or maybe she had and I still didn’t know all of the lies she’d told me. Either way, I couldn’t get caught up in her betrayal. I had a competition to train for.
I could figure all that out after.
Taking the time to make myself presentable—because I needed to look good for the pack, not because I was meeting a hot vampire—I snuck downstairs using the back hallway and slipped out the back door. I breathed a sigh of relief when no one stopped me. Only a little over a week had passed since I’d come to Paradise and already I used the back door far more than I did the front entrance.
I stopped short at the bottom of the steps, barely missing the front end of a two-by-four as it bobbed along on the shoulder of a pack member I didn’t know. He grunted a hello and kept walking, headed for the back acre. A second later, another man appeared behind him, also hefting two-by-fours on his shoulder. A younger boy followed behind with a work belt and hammer in his hands.
I stopped to watch them and my gaze caught on the open acre of grass beyond them. It was the same space where my engagement party had been held two nights ago. It had been fully cleared of any leftover décor and already, they were erecting something new. So far, it was nothing more than an oddly shaped foundation of plywood. The crack of a hammer rang out and I jerked before steeling myself as it rang out again—and again.
I sped along the lines of people with wooden two-by-fours over their shoulders with my chin raised, trying to look as much like a potential alpha as Regan did.
When I got closer, I slowed my pace in order to inspect the construction.
The foundation resembled a stage, except if I understood it right, the audience was higher than the main platform, which was constructed out of bricks. There was a high fence built halfway around the circle, and beyond that, elevated bleachers. They were already half done with the bleachers but from the looks of it, there would be more than enough seating to accommodate the entire pack.
“For the first test.”