Page 37 of Brutal Alpha

“Xander, I swear—”

“Sounds like something you might need to talk about.”

That took me aback.

“With you?”

“Rude,” said Xander. “I’m not Grandma Leo, but I have been around the block a few times. I know when my friends are suffering, and I don’t like to see it. Sit down, have a drink.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I often forgot that Xander was older than I was. While I had been forced to grow up fast, Xander had been Heir to Ensign until he was twenty-six, and he’d always joked around with our younger friends as if he were one of them. Reluctantly, I followed him into the lounge, perching on his couch as Xander poured two generous measures of whiskey. It was smokey and smooth on my tongue, and the burn of it was satisfying as it warmed my chest. I didn’t have time to savor it, because Xander cut straight to the chase.

“What’s up? I know the two of you aren’t exactly best friends, but…” he trailed off, expecting me to jump in and explain what was wrong between me and Julia. The trouble was, I didn’t know. I’d wanted to kiss her on the bridge, and I thought she wanted to kiss me back. I hadn’t—to my knowledge—done or said anything to piss her off since then.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“Try me.”

“We slept together on the Solstice,” I admitted, “and again on Argent.”

To his credit, Xander neither yelled nor gasped nor made a face. He simply swirled his whiskey, taking a thoughtful sip.

“You’ve slept with plenty of other females,” he said. “What’s different about this?”

“She thinks we’re mates.” At any other time, I would never have told Xander that, believing he’d tease her mercilessly and make the whole situation worse. So far, though, he’d been surprisingly level-headed about the whole thing; he couldn’t be less helpful than Leo, who was just as delusional as Julia.

He certainly seemed to consider my words more than Leo had, taking another long sip of his drink before he asked,

“And why does she think that?”

I wanted to say that it wasn’t different, that she was simply young and inexperienced, reading into things that weren’t there, but that would be a lie.

“That first time was—it was intense. Even now, when I touch her, it’s like my wolf goes feral,” I said. “He’s crazy possessive, too—”

“You don’t say,” said Xander, mildly, and I remembered my outburst on the way back from Ensign Bridge.

“That was nothing,” I told him. “I nearly killed one of Leo’s Betas.” Then I’d stalked Julia into the woods and knotted her up against a tree, but he didn’t need to know that part. Even without it, Xander was giving me a look I didn’t like, and as he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, I knew what he was going to say.

“You might not want to hear this, but—”

I cut him off.

“I know what it sounds like. If I didn’t know better, I might agree, but it’s just not biologically possible.”

I shouldn’t have to explain to my adult friends how a mating bond worked, but it seemed like I was going to have to do it for the second time this week.

“That’s what Caleb thought about the twins,” Xander said, before I could start teaching him middle-school biology.

“What?”

“I’m just saying. He thought there was no biological way that they could be his, but then he learned better. Witches are crazy, man. They work differently.”

That—that hadn’t occurred to me. I supposed it was possible since Julia hadn’t even realized she was a witch until the night of the Solstice, the same time we both felt that undeniable pull. I said as much to Xander, who smirked.

“Interesting.”

“You can’t just decide that’s an explanation,” I pointed out. Just because something was possible didn’t make it true.

“Why not?” Xander argued. “It makes sense: if shifters find their mate the first time they touch after they’ve shifted, then a witch-shifter might not find her mate until she’s also come into her magic.”

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