Chapter 2
Kara
By 6 a.m., I'm in the kitchen, gripping the marble countertop to stay upright.
The pain has spread everywhere. My hands throb. My feet ache. Every joint feels like it's being pulled apart and reassembled wrong. Sweat drips down my spine even though I'm shivering. But I force myself to move, to function, to pretend everything's fine.
Because today is their birthday week. The Sterling triplets turn twenty tomorrow—the same day I turn eighteen. And Luna Victoria left me a list last night: blueberry waffles, maple bacon, scrambled eggs, sausage, fresh-squeezed orange juice.
All their favorites.
None for me, of course. There never is.
Ungrateful little debt slave can't expect to eat the same food as the future Alphas, can she?
I reach into the refrigerator, and the cold air hits my face like a slap. My hands are shaking so badly I almost drop the egg carton.
Focus, Kara. Just get through breakfast. Just a few more hours.
"Morning, Carrot."
I flinch. Blake is suddenly behind me, his massive frame blocking the light. I didn't hear him come in—my ears are ringing, everything sounds muffled and distant like I'm underwater.
"You look like shit," he continues cheerfully, reaching past me to grab the entire plate of bacon I just finished cooking. "Probably shouldn't waste food on you anyway. You're leaving tomorrow, right?"
My stomach clenches violently. I haven't eaten since yesterday morning—someone took the protein bar I'd saved for dinner. And now he's taking the bacon I spent twenty minutes making.
Of course he is. Of course he fucking is.
"Blake," Asher's voice cuts through the kitchen. Cool. Controlled. The voice of someone who's never been hungry a day in his privileged life. "The table's waiting."
Blake smirks at me—God, I hate that smirk—and walks away with my bacon. All of it. I grip the counter harder, willing myself not to shake, not to show weakness, not to tell him to go fuck himself.
One more day. You can't blow it now.
"The silverware isn't polished enough," Asher says without looking at me. "Redo it."
I stare at the perfectly clean forks. "Yes, Alpha," I whisper.
Asshole.
Cole appears at the doorway, all fake sunshine and dimples that probably make other girls melt. "Carrot! You're not getting sick on your last day, are you? That'd be tragic."
He reaches out like he's going to check my forehead, and I can't help it—I flinch back. Muscle memory. The last time he touched me "nicely," I ended up abandoned in a snowstorm.
His smile doesn't falter. He touches my forehead anyway, then makes a show of wiping his hand on his jeans.
Like I'm contaminated. Like I'm dirty.
Fuck you too, Cole.
My vision blurs for a second. From fever or rage, I'm not sure anymore. The kitchen tilts sideways and I have to lock my knees to keep from falling.
Don't cry. Don't you dare cry in front of them.
I made that promise seven years ago, and I won't break it now. Not when I'm so close to freedom.
Seven years ago. I was eleven. They were thirteen.
It was a Saturday in December, a week before Christmas. I was scrubbing the kitchen floor when Cole appeared, grinning like we were best friends.
"Hey, Carrot," he said. "Want to play hide and seek?"
I looked up, confused. They never talked to me except to make fun of my hair or my hand-me-down clothes. "What?"
"Hide and seek," Blake said, coming up behind him. "You know, that game kids play? Oh wait—you're basically a kid. Eleven, right?"
"We're bored," Asher added, arms crossed. "And it's too cold to go into town. So... hide and seek. You in?"
I should have said no. Should have recognized the trap. But I was eleven years old, lonely as hell, and so damn starved for basic human kindness that I fell for it.
"Okay," I said, and hated how eager I sounded.
They took me out past the frozen river, into the training grounds where the pack warriors practiced. Beyond that was just... wilderness. Miles and miles of white nothing.
"Rules are simple," Blake said. "We count to one hundred. You hide. Anywhere you want. The better the hiding spot, the more fun it is."
"And if you make it to midnight without us finding you," Cole added with that dimpled smile, "you win."
"What do I win?" I asked.
"A whole day without chores," Asher said. "Tomorrow. You can do whatever you want."
A day off. A whole day off. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had one of those.
"Deal," I said.
They turned their backs, started counting. "One... two... three..."
I ran.
The snow was deep, coming up past my knees in some places. I was wearing a thin hoodie—they'd told me it wouldn't take long, that I wouldn't need a proper coat. I found a fallen tree about half a mile out, huge and old, its trunk creating a little cave in the snow.
Perfect.
I crawled inside, heart pounding with excitement. For the first time in three years, I felt almost... normal. Like a kid playing a game. Like I wasn't just the orphan debt slave.
I heard them in the distance: "Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... ONE HUNDRED! Ready or not, here we come!"
I held my breath, grinning.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then twenty.
The woods were silent except for the wind.
After an hour, I started to worry. "Hey!" I called out. "I'm over here! You're getting cold!"
Nothing.
I crawled out from under the tree. The temperature had dropped—it was getting dark, which in Alaska in December means it was probably around 3 p.m. The sky was that weird purple-black color it gets before the long night sets in.
"Blake? Cole? Asher?" I shouted.
The wind answered.
I started walking back the way I came, but the snow had covered my tracks. Everything looked the same. White trees. White ground. White sky.
Panic set in.
"HELP!" I screamed. "SOMEBODY HELP!"
No one came.
I walked for what felt like hours, my thin hoodie doing nothing against the cold. My fingers started to go numb. Then my toes. My face stopped feeling like part of my body. I couldn't stop shivering.
I fell twice. The second time, I couldn't get back up right away. The snow was so soft. So white. It would be easy to just... lay there.
"Get up," I told myself. "Get up, Kara. Don't let them win. Don't die out here."
But I was so cold. So tired.
I don't know how long I laid there. Long enough that I started feeling warm again—which some distant part of my brain knew was bad, knew meant I was dying.
That's when the patrol found me.
The pack warriors were doing their evening rounds. One of them saw my bright blue hoodie against the snow. They said later that my lips were purple, that I wasn't even shivering anymore. That's the dangerous stage—when your body gives up trying to warm itself.
They rushed me to the pack hospital. Severe hypothermia. Frostbite on eight fingers and six toes. The doctors weren't sure if they'd have to amputate.
I spent three days in the hospital.
On the second day, Luna Victoria came to visit. She stood at the foot of my bed, face unreadable. Behind her, the triplets looked appropriately concerned.
"We're so sorry," Cole said, eyes wide and innocent. "We looked everywhere for you. We called your name for over an hour."
"We thought you went back to the house when we couldn't find you," Blake added. "We didn't know you were lost."
Asher just stood there, arms crossed, saying nothing. But his eyes—for just a second, I saw something flicker there. Guilt, maybe. Or satisfaction.
Luna looked at me with those cold green eyes. "I'm glad you're recovering," she said. "But Kara—don't cause trouble. These boys were trying to include you, and you turned it into a drama."
"I almost died," I whispered.
"You went too far into the woods," she said. "That's not their fault. Next time, use better judgment."
She left. They followed, Cole throwing one last sympathetic look over his shoulder that I knew—KNEW—was fake.
That night, shaking under hospital blankets that couldn't touch the cold inside me, I made a promise:
Never trust them again. Never believe their kindness. Never let them see you break.
And never, ever cry in front of them.
