The training field was alive with fire and sparks, and so was my mind.

My thoughts kept slipping back to Rachel, to the little bits of confession she'd dropped like pebbles in a pond. She had told me about the brides of the triplets, how they'd been chosen, paraded, displayed like trophies. Her words had carried weight, the kind of weight one wears like chains.

And then, when I had asked her quietly, half-jokingly, half-genuinely—if she didn't feel bad about not being with Adam—the words that spilled from her lips had surprised me. "I hate him," she'd said, with a casual shrug.

Hate him? My brows had shot up, but...