Sold. My father sold me.

Staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, with tears streaming down my face, I simply couldn’t believe it.

Sold, like a farmer might sell a cow.

Of course, I wasn’t legally being sold—that would be illegal. No, I was being sent to live with the Wellington family, Corey Wellington specifically, a family of old wealth that owned an enormous estate on Lake Austin.

I’d be given an allowance per month, which of course would go directly to my father as an intermediary, meaning I’d never see any of it. And while I was living there, I’d be expected to do whatever it was Corey wanted of me. It didn’t take a fortune teller to guess what that would be. The only real consolation I had in this entire thing was that Travis wasn’t my real father.

I never knew my parents. I was put into foster care when I was young and Travis was my third foster father, and what a piece of work he was.

We lived on the east side of a town in a less than desirable neighborhood, on the first floor of a three-story walkup apartment that always smelled of bad Indian food and garbage from the restaurant on the block behind us.

Travis spent most of his time on the couch, having worn a spot into the right cushion from sitting there so often. He wore one of his several faded wife-beater tank tops and a pair of camo shorts. Most days he had a beer in his hand and a few more at his feet while he watched sports or whatever trashy reality TV was on. We’d never been close.

But I, unfortunately, was a very desirable omega. I had bright blue eyes with a head of curly blond hair, and unlike most Texans, was pale as a glass of warm milk, which Corey supposedly loved.

Bang—bang—bang!

I almost jumped out of my skin as Travis pounded on the bathroom door.

“You in there, Bailey?!” he called out, his voice slurring from whatever he’d been drinking all day. “I gotta use the can!”

Snatching some tissues, I wiped the tears from my eyes and did my best to make it look like I hadn’t just been crying my eyes out. There was nothing Travis hated more than someone displaying real emotion in front of him.

Bang—bang!

“Bailey!” he roared. “Get the Hell out here now!”

I yanked the door open and tried to push past him quickly, but he blocked my path with his arm.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where you going looking like that?” he asked me, eyeing my shorts and t-shirt.

“What?” I replied softly.

“Corey will be here any minute,” he told me as though I’d somehow forgotten. “You think I’m going to let them show up and see you looking like some bum from the other end of the tracks?”

“That’s what I am…” I muttered to myself.

“What was that?” he snapped, grabbing me by the jaw and pulling my face to his. “Now, I don’t want any sass when Corey arrives, you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, wanting to avoid blowing up a small argument into something massive.

“And go change!”

“Into what!?” I asked. My wardrobe wasn’t exactly any more stylish than his. But as I looked at him, his cracked lips twisted into a sly smile.

“I got you something,” he told me. “It’s on your bed.”

He dropped his arm so I could pass and nodded to my bedroom. Confused, I walked slowly down the hall and into my room where I saw an outfit lying out on my bed. A pair of white khaki pants, a nude-colored button-up shirt with short sleeves and a green bow tie.

Seriously?...

I heard the bathroom door close behind me and struggled to keep it together as I stared at the clothes that he’d picked out for me. It was his best effort of dressing me up, but I could tell he’d picked them up at a secondhand shop. The pants were faded and the stitching on the shirt was beginning to fall apart.

I could hear the loud sound of him peeing from all the way in my room and knew that I only had a few seconds to get dressed before he came out and yelled at me. So, I stepped out of my comfortable shorts and tossed aside my t-shirt and began putting on the things he’d laid out for me.

Corey Wellington, I thought as I tucked in the shirt. Plenty of people would be thrilled to be in Corey’s good graces. His family was unfathomably wealthy—one of those people with so much money that nobody even knew what they did for a living. I’d be living in the lap of luxury on their estate, but I’d also be a prisoner.

And I wouldn’t be in love.

I’d dreamt my whole life of meeting an alpha who would set my heart on fire and make my knees go weak every time I saw him. Someone who would take me away from my awful life and forge a new one with me by his side. Someone I could love and serve in the way a mate was supposed to, who I could bear children for and live happily ever after with. But that day never came, and now I was being shipped off to live with someone who I knew would never make me feel that way. Not in a thousand years.

The bow tie was a cheap one with a plastic hook on it. I managed to get it on as Travis came back into my room.

“Cunnin’,” he said with a grin as he eyed me up and down. “Hey, what’s with the tie?”

I realized the bow tie was a size or two too big and was hanging off me like a strange necklace or something. I tried to adjust it but Travis had already stepped forward and grabbed me in his fat hands.

“Piece of shit,” he grumbled as he tried to synch it up. “Why can’t you have a normal-sized neck, for Christ’s sake?”

Right, it’s my fault you bought the wrong size tie…

But that was Travis’ way. Nothing was ever his fault. It was always mine, the world’s, the plumbers, the government’s—anyone but him.

And then I heard it.

The sound of a car outside. Travis’ eyes lit up.

“Hot damn!” he yelped. “That’ll be him! All right, look…happy!”

Impossible, I thought as I walked behind Travis as he headed for the front door. I say “walked,” but I was really just plodding along down the hall that felt like a dark corridor leading me to a nightmare of a future that had been prepared for me.

“Hurry your ass up!” Travis snapped at me as he grabbed the door handle. I made my way to his side and he straightened himself up as he opened the door. “Corey!”

“Travis!” Corey called out in his typical condescending tone that Travis either didn’t pick up on or chose to ignore. “How are you, boss?”

Corey didn’t even bother looking at Travis as they shook hands. His eyes were on me, examining me like I was a fresh steak ready to be devoured. I could practically feel the slime dripping off him as he looked me up and down.

Like all rich kids, Corey was going with whatever fashion was hot at the time, which meant that today he was wearing a pair of sweat pants with a t-shirt with holes all through it and some expensive pair of designer sneakers. I found it highly ironic that Travis was trying to make sure I looked presentable when Corey himself looked like he’d just mugged a homeless man and taken his clothes. But of course then there was that two-hundred-dollar haircut and gold Rolex on his wrist…

“Hey there, Bailey,” Corey said, grinning like a prince. “Don’t you look…nice.”

He didn’t approve of the outfit, and Travis knew it. He shifted uncomfortably but his eyes lit up when Corey handed him an envelope obviously containing cash.

“Th—thanks, Corey!” Travis stammered. Corey ignored him and took my hand.

“All right, sweet thing. What do you say you and I go for a swim?”