Page 59 of Brutal Alpha Bully

“She’s okay. She’s sleeping,” he assures me, lifting a hand and running it along my hairline, pulling a few errant strands away from my sticky face. “She kind of saved our lives, Phina.”

I blink as the memories come back to me. Declan. The fire, closing in around us. Nora reaching for her power, even as I knew there was none left in her little body.

When I move to sit up, Xeran’s hand finds my shoulder, and he helps me into position. I can tell from the scent that this is his room—it’s so thick in here, so comforting and warm, like steam from a scented bath. It’s dark, with the curtains drawn. Without asking, he hands me a glass of water, positioning the straw so I can take a sip.

“What time is it?” I ask, eyes finding his.

“It’s around one,” he says, his gaze wandering over me like he might need to take stock of any changes, watch me for injuries. “You’ve been sleeping for almost twenty-four hours now. Do you remember any of the times I woke you up?”

I blink again, my understanding of time realigning with what he’s said. It’s not surprising to me that I slept for that long, but it takes a moment for my brain to adjust.

“No,” I admit, slowly bringing my gaze to Xeran’s.

“I’ve been feeding you,” he says with a soft smile. “I’ve been waking each of you up every few hours, making sure you eat. Nora is like a furnace, so I’ve been putting some cold compresses around her, too.”

“She was so brave,” I whisper, remembering the little dome she made. The fear on the faces around me, and the way her magic saved us, combined with mine. We made something stronger together.

It feels like a fever dream.

“She was,” Xeran agrees, putting his hand on my shoulder when I reposition myself again. “Take it easy—I don’t know how much time your body will need to heal. To adjust.”

“Are the others okay?”

“Well, this experience finally convinced Soren to get an inhaler,” Xeran jokes. When I keep looking at him, prying for more information, he runs his hand along my arm, tracing the path of my wrist bone. “Yes. Everyone is okay. Though Felix was a little mind-blown at the display of magic from the two of you.”

My eyes widen. “Are they going to say something?”

“To who?” Xeran jokes softly. “The alpha supreme?”

I stare at him in confusion, then I realize what he’s saying. He assumed that title the moment Declan died. I replay the image of him tossing Declan’s body over the cliff. I know it should make me sick and not filled with pride, but I can’t help the way I feel.

“It’s going to take a while for the town to recover and rebuild,” Xeran says, and the way his eyes flash tells me that it was bad this time. I knew that already from driving with him and seeing the flames, but it’s always worse after, seeing the piles of silken ash. “But we can do it. We’ve done it before.”

Xeran wasn’t here for the first round of rebuilding. I can only imagine things will go smoother under his leadership.

We sit in silence for a moment. I can feel my mind physically processing this information, working through everything that’s happened. It settles between us like a weight, like something you could reach out and touch.

I see it in Xeran’s expression, in the wrinkle on his brow, the set of his shoulders. He’s wearing an open button-up shirt, and for the first time, I see the thick white bandages around his chest. Dressing the wounds he got from Declan.

He really is the alpha supreme now.

“You should rest, too,” I say, reaching out and skimming my fingers over the bandages. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be fine,” he dismisses with a wave of his hand. I know he’ll heal faster than me, and even faster than other alphas, but I grab his hand, anyway, tugging on him until he gives in and climbs into the bed with me, taking special care not to jostle me.

Once he’s settled and I’m staring at his ocean-blue eyes, the rest of what happened on the ridge comes back to me.

“Xeran—” I start, but he reaches out, taking my hand in his.

“We don’t have to talk about it right now, Phina. All I want is for you to get better.”

We don’t have to talk about it. The “it” could be so many things—the magic, our future, the truth that I kept from him for far too long.

Maybe we don’t have to talk about it, but I find myself forming the words, anyway.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say, dropping my gaze to my hands, working quickly on the edge of the duvet.

“I understand why you didn’t.”

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