Page 10 of Brutal Alpha

“You think I’m insane.”

“No, no, I’m just thinking.” Ethan stood suddenly, the unexpected movement making me jump. Raising his fist in the air as if giving a salute, and said,

“Make my shadow hold a finger up.”

“Don’t tease me, Ethan.”

“I’m being serious. Do it.”

Taking a deep breath, I closed my good eye again, plunging the world into shadow. It was still a surprise to see anything at all, and Ethan’s shadow was clearly defined, his right arm held up in an L shape, his fist closed. I concentrated on that closed fist, exploring it with my mind. The longer I explored it, the more I could make out its real shape: I could feel the fingers where they were tucked into the palm, invisible but there.

I imagined one of the fingers coming to stand to attention. Nothing changed. Irritated, I tried again. Nothing.

“You can do it,” Ethan said, low and gentle. “Take a breath. Try again.”

I didn’t respond to him, but I did take a breath as he instructed, concentrating on the feeling of the air dropping in and out of my lungs. I made my mind completely blank and tranquil, and I reached for the hand again, lending my energy to the shadow of Ethan’s hand.

A single finger unfurled, reaching up like a sapling reaching toward the sun. Ethan’s shadow was now giving me a tenebrous middle-fingered salute.

“Am I doing it?” I asked, my heart jumping as I heard Ethan’s surprised snort of laughter.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re doing it,” he confirmed. Then, incredulous: “Julia, that’s—that’s magic!”

“I know that, idiot,” I said, but I could scarcely believe it myself. My good eye flew open to see him staring at me as if I were something entirely new, something fantastic and wondrous.

“You can do magic,” he said, and maybe it hadn’t sunk in the first time because this time the words sent sparks flyingthrough my veins. I gasped as I sprang up from my seat, covering my mouth to stop the hysterical giggle that emerged.

“I can do magic!” My voice trembled with excitement, every limb thrumming with energy so intense that I couldn’t stop myself from throwing my arms around Ethan’s neck, utterly jubilant. To my surprise, he responded immediately, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me into the air, twirling me around once, twice, three times before he set me back on the ground. Dizzy and grinning, my arms fell away from his neck, fingers tracing the bare skin of his arms, and the world stopped.

The feeling in my belly was insistent, a tug that refused to be ignored, and I’d heard about the pull of a mating bond before, but this couldn’t be it. This didn’t make sense. Mating bonds formed the first time a male and female touched after they’d both reached Shifting Age. Ethan and I had touched in a hundred small ways since my wolf first took my skin when I was fifteen. It couldn’t be the bond, and yet it was. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.

My hands fisted in the material of his shirt, and I risked looking up to meet his gaze. The joy and amazement in his eyes were gone, replaced with a hunger that sent heat rushing between my thighs. His hands on my waist gripped me tight, not letting up even as he growled,

“You should get inside. Get some rest.”

I didn’t want to get some rest. I couldn’t sleep if I tried. Somewhere in the back of my head, a part of me was insisting that I listen to him; I wasn’t going to let Ethan Cain fuck me in a field. That was ridiculous. The other part, though—the louder part—was insisting I do exactly that. I’d never known a need so intense, and I was going to get what I needed.

“I don’t want to go inside,” I breathed, tugging at his shirt. I needed him closer. Needed his scent all over me.

“Julia—” he started, his voice rough and desperate, his hands glued to my waist as if he didn’t trust himself to move them.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” I said, and then I kissed him.

It felt like I had released him from his leash. Crushing me against the hard muscle of his torso, Ethan kissed me like a starving man, and I could do nothing but allow myself to be consumed. In a matter of minutes, he walked me backward, away from the fire and into the darkness. No one was paying attention; no one would care. It was the Solstice, and we probably weren’t the only couple enjoying the balmy evening. I gasped as my dress was lifted, and Ethan pulled away from my mouth to say,

“Tell me to stop.”

I didn’t reply. I kissed him again.

Chapter 4 - Ethan

This couldn’t be real. I couldn’t be lying on the cool, damp grass beneath the old oak, completely naked, with Julia Thorne passed out on my chest, my knot still buried inside her. I would never have done something so astronomically, unbelievably stupid. She was my best friend’s little sister, the same little sister I’d fought with every time we’d been in the same room for the past four years.

If I’d only fucked her, that would have been stupid enough, but I’d knotted her. I didn’t know what the hell had come over me; I never knotted the girls I was with. That shit was reserved for mates, and I respected that. Or at least, I thought I did. I also thought that I had a hard rule about not fucking girls who were virgins, but I’d thrown that one out of the window, too. If it hadn’t been obvious from the clumsy, trembling way she’d touched me, I would have known the second I pushed into her and her face pinched in pain for a few gentle strokes before it faded into pleasure. I’d knotted my best friend’s little sister, taken her virginity in the grass on the outskirts of a party because—because what? I’d wanted to?

Yeah. I’d wanted to. Julia Thorne might be infuriating, but she had grown into an undeniably beautiful woman, and my wolf had never been good at differentiating between all the ways she made my blood run hotter. With her eyes closed and her breathing even, her expression soft, it was difficult to imagine the absolute devil of a woman she was while awake. She’d collapsed, breathing hard, onto my chest in the wake of our shared climax, and a few heartbeats later, she’d been dead to the world. It was a blessing I didn’t deserve, but one I would gladly take. Once the urgent, insistent hunger had subsided, it would have been mortifying to meet her eyes and tell her we hadat least twenty minutes to wait until my knot went down and we could separate. Better that she sleep through it and leave me to my self-flagellation.

It seemed like hours passed before the swell of my knot was reduced enough for me to slip out of her, but when I did, she stirred.

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