Page 26 of Eclipsed Heart

“Is that why you hid my magic?” I watched Zeke closely. I didn’t want to miss the stench of sulfur and let him get away with something.

“Ididn’t hide your magic.” He shook his head. “I found you that way.”

I narrowed my gaze, waiting for something to flicker across his face, but there was never a hint of a lie. And yet, Iknewhe was hiding something.

“Where did you find her?” Michael asked, scratching the back of his head.

“When the fire started, I was there. I was about to leave, but then there was some sort of explosion from the study.” His brows furrowed. “Callie had been blasted back against the wall, so I grabbed her and left.”

Miles and Lucas came to stand on the other side of me, all of us forming a line except for Bodey, who released Zeke but still didn’t step away. I kept my hand on his arm.

“You were there?” Miles tilted his head. “Why didn’t we know that?”

“Because it was none of your business,” Zeke said as he yanked down his shirt and moved so that Bodey wasn’t directly in front of him. “If I hadn’t taken Callie and run, there was no telling what would’ve happened.”

My heart thundered. “You were there and kept it from everyone?”

“I rushed you to the car, desperate to get you help,” Zeke huffed. “By the time I got you settled, Michael had pulled up on the other side of the palace. I saw him running in. I knew he’d save Samuel, and I needed to get you out of there.”

Rubbing my temples, I tried to make sense of all of it. “So my memories were already gone?”

He shook his head. “No. I took you to a witch near the palace so she could heal you. I had to leave to get some herbs she needed. I tried to get the supplies from our pack’s coven, but they refused, so my beta, Julian, got involved. He was my dearest friend besides your mother. He got the supplies for me and met me back at the witch’s place. By then, she’d cast a spell to suppress your memories and killed my beta to lock down your magic. She told me to take you away before she decided to do something even more drastic… That’s when I took you and ran back here.”

Never trust witches.Zeke had chanted that mantra for all these years. Now I at least understood his resentment. A witch had killed his best friend—his beta—because of me. Even though that didn’t make his treatment of me right, at least there was a reason he disliked me so much.

“Wait.” Lucas scratched the back of his neck. “You’re telling us a witch killed your beta to hide Callie’s magic? But why?”

He shook his head. “I never try to understand the mind of a witch. I brought her here and found her a family and a home.”

“Where she was mistreated and beaten,” Bodey grated. “I’m not sure you did her any favors.”

Zeke rolled his eyes. “Stop being so pussy-whipped.” He gestured to me. “She is strong. She survived.”

My heart ripped in two. I couldn’t believe how nonchalant he was about the seventeen years I’d been trapped here. “You made me work with broken ribs! You allowed Charles and his gang of idiots to attack me on numerous occasions, each time worse than the last, and you took their side each time!” My anger was getting the best of me. I marched toward Zeke.

“I made youstrong.” He scoffed and pounded on his chest. “Something none of these other idiots could do. It should’vebrokenyou, and yet, here you stand.” I could’ve sworn his face twisted into regret, but I wasn’t sure for what—not treating me better or that Ihadn’twound up broken?

I pushed a finger into Zeke’s chest, and his breathing quickened. “You isolated me, made me utterly alone. I couldn’t attend school with the rest of the pack, get a job in Halfway, or even breathe too far from my house. You even prevented Theo from being able to help me, making things worse for me when he did. You made me feel weak and pathetic…like I didn’t matter.”

“You’re taking this too personally.” Zeke smirked. “You always were quite the drama queen.”

“You sick son of a bitch.” Jack’s face twisted in disgust. “You think what you did is right?”

“I did what was necessary,” Zeke retorted, removing my finger from his chest.

His touch made me want to gag, the sensation like a slug crawling across my skin.

“Donottouch her,” Bodey roared as he slammed Zeke into the garage door. “You didn’t do what was necessary; you caged her inside the pack.”

Zeke wrinkled his nose. “You kept Samuel prisoner too. You kept him in your pack—he didn’t get to leave or do much of anything either. So don’t act like what you did was better. We both kept them safe. Until now.”

Son, he’s goading you now. He wants us to threaten him so he can use this against us and divide our packs.Michael stood as still as a statue. I would have thought that he was hanging out with friends. His face remained relaxed as if we weren’t interrogating a narcissist. In other words, I needed to learn from him because my parents weren’t around to teach me how to interact with potential threats.

Trying to model his behavior, I rolled my shoulders to release some tension. “You’re right. The past is irrelevant right now.” We’d pushed him hard enough for today. If we kept on, he would feel even more threatened. Besides, I doubted he’d share more than he had.

Zeke visibly relaxed while Bodey's shoulders heaved.

Babe, please,I linked, touching his arm.Your dad is right. He’s going to tell people that we came to his pack land and threatened him.

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