Page 80 of Escalating Alpha

He snorted. “Of course you don’t. You’re not a fucking psycho but—”

“No, you’re not hearing me. I’m not making the call. I don’t care and—”

“Too fucking bad. Obviously, you need it,” he said firmly, giving me a hard look. “You need to get a handle on this and…” He glanced from me to where I’d been standing to where I was across the kitchen now. His confusion snapped me out of what I’d been thinking.

I chuckled darkly. “I had to move away from the knives because my mind went immediately to throwing one at you. My anger is that out of control where I was reaching for it before I realized it. My wolf and siren—all of us are too on edge and I’mbarely holding it together. They didn’t care that you are human or I love you, Jas. That’s how—fuck off.”

“But it’s getting worse because you’re ignoring it, Sera,” he said gently. “If it doesn’t help, you can stab me all you want.” He rolled his eyes when I growled. “We both know you won’t. Stuff it.” He walked over to me, but it was careful like he was approaching a scared animal. He sighed and rubbed my arm. “I know you.”

“Not anymore. Not like we did,” I whispered.

“Fair, but I know that you are imagining worse than it probably is.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Is there any level of worse when it comes to your mom trying to kill you? Is poison really better than strangulation or snuffing a baby with a pillow?”

“Again, fair,” he accepted. “But not knowing—your brain can’t handle it. And you’re too pretty to lose all your beauty sleep.” He sighed again when I didn’t take the bait. “Please just trust me on this. Please? I will make sure the assholes support you like they should while you deal with this.”

“I currently don’t have a sparring partner,” I grumbled.

“You have dozens, but they bailed because you kept preferring one and not sparring at all but fucking.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “I heard it wassuperhot, you skank.”

Only Jason could get away with that. It worked because I laughed and shoved him away.

Gently. I kept my head and remembered my strength even if I was still upset. That was the part of me I was losing or struggling to hold onto. If making the call meant I could stop the spiral down, then fuck it.

“Call Phobie.” I frowned when he did. “You think it’s smart to eventhinkof doing this without talking to my damn therapist who is the only reason I haven’t completely sunk into madness? Are you fucking stupid?”

“Apparently, I am because yeah, it didn’t cross my mind.” He shrugged and then asked for my phone.

I unlocked it and tossed it to him with a roll of my eyes. I finished getting the rest of breakfast together while he talked to her. To say Phobie laid into him about the intervention and his way of handling it was an understatement.

And Jason kept looking to me for help.

I responded by flipping him off. Iappreciatedthat he cared and would come just to help me with this. I did.

But this was an intervention for something I hadn’t known was getting bad or I hadn’t even confirmed yet. Carter was an idiot for trusting this fool to handle anything emotional.

However, Jason had contacted Zeno on the other side because I found out that the video call was already set up with him to handle Clayton and a female siren to get involved and help us out. I wanted to throttle Jason for overstepping but also thank him because I didn’t think that would have been a call I could make. I didn’t want to bother people.

Especially not for my stupid shit that I should be able to handle.

Others found out it was happening and wanted to be involved or help. I didn’t want that and made Jason turn them down. Hey, he involved himself in all of this… He was involved.

It was his party, so he got to turn down other guests. I told him that a few times with a smirk.

I felt like I blinked and it was time for the call. Zeno knew how to motivate people because Clayton was informed that he had a surprise if he behaved, so he agreed to whatever.

Except apparently, he didn’t know it was a video call with me. It was all over his face when he could see me.

“Hey, Dad,” I greeted.

“I’m not—” he snapped at the same timeZenoreplied, “Hello, my wonderful daughter.”

If the situation wasn’t so crazy, it would have been funny how they looked at each other like the man in front of him was nuts.

“I was talking to Zeno,” I muttered, annoyed with myself that I’d let my nerves start us off like this. My birth father had a horrible temper and would shut down just to be an asshole if provoked. “He set this up so I can ask you some questions, Clayton.”

“And I have a few since we’re doing this,” Phobie added which surprised all of us, but she just shrugged. Fine, whatever helped.

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