Page 122 of Claimed By My Fiancé's Brother

“The next time you try to tell me what to do, I’ll fucking kill you,” I promised him.

Father never gave up his hope that I’d “come to my senses” and take back my title—and find a sacrifice to ensure I’d live past thirty. He didn’t even inform the pack that Dylan was alpha heir until the physicians diagnosed him with his incurable disease.

Maybe that was when Dylan’s envy had started to fester.

Or maybe it was even before then, during those years when I’d hated myself while doing Father’s bidding, fighting in every skirmish and getting more blood on my hands with each passing day. I tried to drown out my thoughts in anything and everything I could overindulge in: alcohol, drugs, and women I never spent more than one night with.

In those hazy years, I’d pushed Dylan away to protect him from the monster I’d become. Or maybe it was because I was jealous of howsimplehis life was compared to mine.

Our strained relationship completely disintegrated into nothing after just one argument.

It happened shortly after Dylan was officially named alpha heir.

“You’ll die if you don’t go through with the sacrifice.” Dylan was insistent, but I had a lifetime of experience ignoring anything regardingthe curse.

I ran faster, forcing Dylan to sprint to keep up, breathless pants leaving his lips.

“Alex, don’t be stubborn. No one will know about it. You’ll be discreet like every Hawthorne before us,” he urged. “You can use that girl who follows you around…what’s her name, Anastasia? Promise her she’ll be your mate, then kill her as soon as she confesses her love for?—”

Dylan never saw my fist coming.

His nose was broken and bleeding as I held him up against a tree, rage burning through me.

“Have you lost your mind?” I growled. “If I die, then I fucking die, but I won’t ever murder an innocent to save my own life.”

Anastasia was my friend…perhaps the only one I had.

We had an understanding.

She already knew about my curse because she’d overheard one of Father’s indiscreet conversations, and if there was someone Anastasia cared for above anyone else, it was herself.

We didn’t stay loyal to each other, and we certainly didn’t love each other, we just made each other feel less alone.

Dylan’s face darkened as he tried and failed to extricate himself from my hold.

“You like you’re above the rest of us, but without those powers you claim to despise, you’re nothing,” he snarled, and I paused, stunned by the venom lacing his words.

I’d never seen that side of my little brother.

I’d always known my power didn’t make me special—just cursed.

But that wasn’t how Dylan saw it.

That was the moment I realized Dylan didn’t just want my former alpha heir position, he wanted the power that came with being a Hawthorne firstborn son.

My hold on Dylan slackened, but not before I gave him a clear warning.

“The next time you bring up this issue, alpha heir or not, I won’t spare you.”

I’d always thought the closest I would ever get to love would be Anastasia’s sporadic companionship, since I couldn’t risk anyone’s life by getting entangled with them.

After all, Father would be only too happy to arrange for an accident if he suspected my partner was in love with me.

He’d do anything to force me to return to my place as alpha heir.

Then I’d met Eleanor.

One look at those jade-green eyes that’d seemed to see me, just me, and not persona I had to hold up to keep people away from me, and I was lost.

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