Four Alphas Chose Her Over Me, Until I Disappeared and They Searched the World for Me Chapter 02

Four Alphas Chose Her Over Me, Until I Disappeared and They Searched the World for Me Chapter 02

I smiled.

“So should I be thanking you?”

Kellan caught the edge in my voice, and his face darkened.

“You wanted to go to Northreach anyway.”

“Why else would you never flat-out refuse, no matter how many times the advisors from the Royal Frontier Research Institute reached out?”

“We just helped you make up your mind.”

I did want to go. The research they did there had been my dream since I was a little girl.

But I couldn’t bear to leave them. We’d grown up together. Our bond was supposed to be thicker than blood.

So I’d turned down two invitations already, just to stay in Crown City with them.

But they weren’t worth it anymore.

I picked my acceptance letter up off the table.

“Well, then. Goodbye.”

Soren stepped into my path without thinking.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“And us? What about us?”

I looked at him.

“What ‘us’? Was there ever an us to begin with?”

His face stiffened.

“Rhea, don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“Yes, going out with you was to get you to sign. But it wasn’t all fake.”

“I’ll stay with you until school starts.”

“After that, I’ll come see you at Northreach whenever I’m free.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? Haven’t I already given it to you?”

So that was how he saw it.

Two months of dating me already counted as the grandest gift he could bestow.

But hadn’t he been the one to flirt with me first? The one who’d stolen kisses while he thought I was asleep?

If he hadn’t sent me all those signals, why would I ever have confessed?

Maren tried to soothe me, her voice soft.

“Rhea, Soren really does care about you.”

“After you fell asleep last night, he even covered you with a blanket.”

I almost laughed out loud.

Trick me into a binding acceptance I couldn’t back out of—then tuck a blanket over me at night.

I popped open one of their champagne bottles. “A toast. I hope the five of you stay together forever.”

Then I unclasped the silver wolf pendant I’d worn since childhood—the token that belonged to the five of us.

I set it down in front of Maren.

“Haven’t you always said you regretted missing our childhood?”

“This is yours now, too.”

“Congratulations. You’ve officially replaced me.”

Maren didn’t reach for it.

Soren’s frown deepened by the second.

“What is wrong with you today?”

“Weren’t you always the one saying the five of us would never split up?”

I turned to leave.

“That was then.”

“This is now.”

The hurt they handed me had already hardened into the courage to walk away.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

A message from my advisor at the Royal Frontier Research Institute—RFRI.

[The transport will arrive in Crown City in forty-eight hours.]

[Rhea Wren, please confirm early enrollment.]

I tapped confirm.

Projects run directly under the Alpha King carried the highest possible clearance.

Once I was inside the Northern Frontier Research Base, my personal number and devices would be confiscated and sealed.

Until the project ended, no one would be able to find me. No one.

On my way out, I muted the group chat that had been part of my life for eighteen years.

Behind me, their laughter and roughhousing carried through the door.

They thought I’d be just like always.

Mad.

Hurt.

Then crawling right back like a good girl.

But not this time.

This time, they’d crossed a line.

Before I left, I wanted to return everything that belonged to them.

Every bond had to be cut clean—only then could I walk into my own future.

I caught Kellan’s scent at the mall. When I found him, he was out shopping with Maren.

He was loaded down with bags—hangers, a desk lamp, storage bins.

All of it for Maren.

When he saw me, all he said was, “What are you doing here?”

I held out the medal. “Returning this.”

The year he turned twelve, he won Crown City’s biggest hunting tournament and presented the prize to me. He said he was afraid he’d lose it, so I should keep it safe for him.

They were just objects. But they were also hidden bonds.