Page 32 of Brutal Alpha Bully

“Hey,” Xeran says, pulling back and looking at me when I finally start to calm down. Grabbing his shirt, he uses it to wipe the tears from my face, like he doesn’t care at all that I’ve made a mess of the thing. “Hey, it’s—it’s okay.”

I suck in a breath and nod, even though I’m not quite sure I believe it’s true.

Xeran stares at me, and for a second, I think I might get the apology I always dreamed about after high school. That he might acknowledge the bullying, realize how much it hurt me.

Instead, he clears his throat and says softly, thoughtfully, “As long as it stays in the house.”

I blink at him. “What?”

He nods, working his lips together and looking at the floor. “Yeah—as long as you only do it in here, and you tell nobody about it… we’ll do it.”

“Do… what?”

He raises his gaze to meet mine. I see fear there, along with something else. Something like newly burgeoning trust.

“Magic,” he clarifies. “Keep it in the house, and it’s fine by me.”

It’s not the apology I was hoping for, but it still feels impossibly tender. Like he’s seen right to the center of me and plucked up a tiny piece of my soul, turning it over and showing it to me. Proof that I’m seen.

“Okay,” I say, sucking in a breath, realizing that this new agreement actually is helping me keep the shame from talking to my mother at bay. “Okay, deal.”

Chapter 15 - Xeran

Every night, I dream about Seraphina.

About going to her room, picking her up from her bed, bringing her back to mine. I dream about shifting at night, running through the woods, running into her wolf there. I dream about being in high school again, sneaking away to be with the girl I knew I was forbidden to have.

Then every morning, I wake up to the reality that she doesn’t want me. That I closed that door a long time ago, and there’s no chance of me opening it again.

Even though I know I have no chance with her, it doesn’t stop my wolf from pacing in anger, howling inside me to do something about her family. That her brother would dare to put his hands on her, that her mother would stand by and do nothing as the abuse continued.

That her mother woulddareto call Seraphina a whore.

Even thinking about it, imagining it, makes my blood start to boil, my instincts gnawing at me, wanting me to sink my teeth into the neck of anything that hurts her.

Ironically, that would apply to me, too.

For a week after her return from the market, Seraphina and Nora are in good spirits. Seraphina uses her magic each day to bring more life to the house, painting rooms, cleaning out pests, and shining the floors until they sparkle.

Nora runs through the books I give her at record speed, asking for more and more. And each time, I have to slip into my father’s study, feeling like a kid again as I run my finger along the spines and find what she’s looking for, make a pile, and leave it for her outside her door.

Each morning, I leave before they wake up. It’s easier that way for me, when I wake up turned on to the point of pain, my dreams of Seraphina working their way into my bloodstream.

It’s not good for me, to have her around like this. My body is getting used to her scent, to the pull, and wants only for me to get closer.

Exactly one week after Soren went with Seraphina to the grocery store, he and I are out in the woods on the eastern side of town, walking through the remnants of the fire we fought out here.

“Do you think something about these fires has been different?” Soren asks, stepping over a glob of the extinguisher and looking to me, eyebrows raised.

I stop, turning to him, watching his face carefully to see if he’s been following the same line of thinking as me. At both the fires we responded to this past week, there were three similarities.

First, they were next to housing developments, relatively nice neighborhoods, just like where Seraphina’s house was before it burnt.

Second, each of the other fires had a similar eye-of-the-storm area, where nothing was burnt, right in the center of the carnage.

And third, I caught the scent of gasoline wafting in the air. So light that I might have been imagining it, or conflating it with the scent of the daemon fire. Faint enough that I almost didn’t trust my own nose, wanted to wait until the other guys spoke up about it. I didn’t want to taint their judgment by coming out and asking, “Does anyone smell gasoline?”

Now Soren laughs, shaking his head. “Okay, the look on your face is telling me that you agree with me, but you’re not going to tell me why.”

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