Page 35 of Brutal Alpha Bully

“I’ll accept that challenge.”

As I stand in the doorway quietly and watch Xeran coach her through another game, it almost feels like my brain is lifting from my body. Without meaning to, I’m thinking about the moment, all those years ago, when I knew I was pregnant. My first instinct was to call Xeran and tell him. To ask him to come back and take care of me.

But I wasn’t sure if he would.

Actually, Iknewthat he would have come back—out of obligation. Out of duty. But I wasn’t sure if he would ever love our child.

Ever love me.

And if we’re not mates, that means that Xeran could have a real mate out there somewhere. And I could never subject my child to the reality of watching their father have another family. A family that he naturally, biologically, would have loved much more.

So I said nothing, and I had Nora take her pills, and I still haven’t told Xeran the truth.

I think about the way he pulled me into his arms after the incident with my mother. How he’d comforted me. What would it have been like if I reached out to him back then and asked for his help? Would he have returned and taken care of me? Fallen in love with our baby?

Just as quickly, my brain provides me with the memory of the day he rejected me publicly in front of basically every single student at our school. When he made it perfectly clear that we werenotmates, and that it was laughable I would think so. A Sorel wouldneverbe mates with a Winward.

So maybe even seeing him like this, with Nora, was still a good call. Maybe I can’t handle one more painful, crushing rejection from Xeran Sorel.

Chapter 17 - Xeran

Terrifyingly, Nora Winwarddidcome close to beating me in one of the matches we played. She didn’t notice—thank the gods—but when I saw it there on the table, it made my heart jump with something surprising. Something I wasn’t expecting to feel. Something like pride.

Like I had anything to do with her aptitude, her intelligence. Sure, I taught her the rules of the game, but within ten minutes, she fully understood them and started crafting her own strategies, coming up with different ways to play against me. She was already starting to analyze my weaknesses, look for ways to exploit them. A strategic thinker.

Seraphina surprises us by bringing us hot chocolate, and for a second, I let myself sit in what it would be like if this was my life. Playing games with Nora. Enjoying a warm drink with them as a summer thunderstorm rolled in over the trees to the east. What it would be like to keep these two in my life.

Maybe that would be my strategy now. Endless delay. Just keep talking about going back to Illinois, then never do it. Keep talking about Nora and Seraphina leaving Silverville together, and never let that happen.

When it’s time to go to bed, I wish I could stay up with Nora, keep playing together. But the guys and I are training first thing in the morning, and Nora is yawning.

As I get ready for bed, stripping down into my underwear and brushing my teeth, I find my thoughts going back to her. To Nora. To those blue eyes that are so much like mine. Her bright mind.

I need to ask her how old she is. It can’t be long before she’ll have her first shift, and her sleeping patterns will movetoward an alpha’s. She’ll no longer go to bed and wake up with her mother. And it would be nice for her to have another alpha around so she wouldn’t have to spend the free hours of the night alone, sitting in a quiet, dark room and waiting for the morning to come.

Luckily, it was never like that for me, growing up with two older alpha brothers. By the time my first shift came and I realized I wasn’t sleepy at ten anymore, Tanner and Dallas were already bursting into my room, grabbing me by the limbs as I laughed and writhed, dragging me out with them to go hunting.

In the morning, Farris and Kalen would stare wide-mouthed at whatever we managed to catch the night before. Our mother would sigh, roll up her sleeves, and pull out the dehydrators to start making elk jerky.

That was back when there was still light in the Sorel house. Before she passed.

Now, I slide into bed, letting my head hit the pillow, forcing my body to relax, to let go of the tension in each part of me. Like every night, two things swirl through my head.

First, the knowledge that Seraphina is just down the hall from me, in her own bed. The pull in my body toward her only gets stronger with each passing day. I’m thankful for Nora’s presence, because if she wasn’t in that room with her mother, I probably already would have given in and gone to her in the middle of the night.

And second, I think about the strange circumstances around the fires. Etchings in the trees, the little clearings left behind. Something is ringing in the back of my mind, some familiarity that I should hold on to but can’t quite seem to grab.

I’m caught between thinking about the fires and falling into a dream about fighting one when the first ear-splitting wail rings out through the house.

The alarms.

The wildfire alarms that Declan had dismantled. The ones that the squad and I went around and fixed the second day we were here. If they’re going off here and now, that means the fire is close to the house and only getting closer.

I fly out of bed and down the hallway, sprinting toward the room Nora and Seraphina share. The door flies open before I reach them, and Seraphina stands there, her mouth slightly open, the panic and fear flashing over her face in waves.

“Come with me!” I yell, though they can’t hear me over the loud, insistent whining of the sirens. It’s enough to wake even a tired alpha from the deepest of sleeps.

We fly through the house together, the sound of our feet heavy on the stairs, but just before I pull them through the door, Seraphina puts out a hand to stop me.

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