Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by his Brother

The silence was unbearably long. Hell, it felt like a blade hovering over my throat. Letizia and Giulia had both gone rigid, their eyes darting back to my bare neck.

My own fear was right up there. I had completely forgotten myself and had left what I should have done at first for the last.

I resisted the urge to cover the mark with my hands. Maybe they hadn’t really seen it. Maybe the light was playing tricks on them. Maybe...

"Uh..." Letizia cleared her throat, the sound grating against the stillness. "Your scarf, María José... about that..."

Giulia looked anywhere but at me, suddenly fascinated with the wooden floorboards. "We... uh... we had to take it off when we were bathing you."

My stomach plummeted.

"We didn’t mean to pry," Letizia added hastily, her hands flapping like agitated birds. "It’s just—we saw..."

I gulped down. I knew what they saw.

"We saw the mark," Giulia blurted, finally daring to look at me.

I could actually hear my own heartbeat drumming in my ears. This was bad. This was really, really bad.

My mark. My biggest secret. The one thing that had the power to either ruin me or damn me completely. Even though I didn’t want to follow Rosa’s command, I knew she was right.