Page 51 of Broken Wolf Heart
“Your anxious pacing and resting bitch face would suggest otherwise.” I open my mouth to spew curses and threats, but he cuts me off. “Bro, you’re lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.”
I look down at my hands. My veins are glowing neon blue beneath my skin, like they’re filled with something other than blood. My stomach turns as I realize what it is: magic.
“It’s been like this since I killed him,” I say in a ragged voice.
“And you’re just now telling me?”
“I’d hoped it would go away when Lexi became alpha,” I admit.
Dutch crosses his arms. “And how’s that working out for you?”
“Not fucking great as you can see.”
He sighs like my outburst only confirmed what he already knows. “You’re scared.”
I glare at him. “I’m dangerous.”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive,” he says. “Look, man. We’ve seen power gone wrong before. Packs who lose their mind when they bond. But this… this seems different.”
“Because it is,” I say, hoarse with the reality of it. “I didn’t just kill an alpha. I took his magic. His legacy. Including whatever synthetic shit he pumped into his own veins inside that lab. And now it’s inside me, mixing with the magic of the hex blade, crawling around like it wants to tear me apart from the inside out.” I bite back the fury that rises as my next words tumble out. “It’s doing the same to her.”
“Who, Lexi?” He waves my words away. “She just needs time. First shifts are always hard.”
I turn so he can see the wounds on my back. They’ve begun to close already, but not by much.
“What the fuck,” Dutch says, gaping.
“This is more than a first shift,” I say. “She almost couldn’t stop it. Her control keeps slipping. Like at the meeting.”
“Maybe the synthetic alpha magic Franco used on her is mixing with her own alpha power—just like yours is doing.”
“Maybe.” I stare bleakly out at the night. “And she doesn’t have two decades of being a wolf to ground her against it.”
Dutch is silent for a moment. “You think she’s gonna lose it?”
“I think she’s holding herself together with string and duct tape. And I think, if I don’t hold it together too, we’re both going to implode.”
I can feel it inside both of us. The pressure building.
The rage.
The grief.
The power.
I want to burn the world down just to quiet the storm inside me.
I shake my head. “Sometimes, I swear I hear his voice. Like he’s still here. Laughing at me. Waiting for me to become him.”
“Your dad?”
“Franco.”
Dutch looks over at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
“You won’t,” he says at last.
“You don’t know that.”
