Page 15 of Brutal Alpha Bully

“I’ll let them know,” Kalen says, already sounding like he’s dressing, getting to his feet, taking action. “What time should we be at your place?”

Chapter 8 - Seraphina

“Was everything in your bag?”

“What?” Nora looks up at me from her place on the floor where she sits with her back against the wall, her legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. “Oh, yeah.”

“Good.” I tap my finger against my knee, straining to hear Xeran’s voice through the walls. It’s low, and he only speaks a few words at a time so I can’t catch or hold on to any of what he’s saying. “So, you took your pills?”

“Like I do every morning,” she says, nodding, eyes on me as though she’s more worried about me than I am about her. Only ten, and she acts like she knows exactly what it is to carry the world on her shoulders.

And maybe she does.

There are a million things running through my mind right now. Getting Nora more of her medicine, finding some clothes, whether or not it would be safe to take a shower here.

How soon we can get away from this house without Xeran finding out.

He won’t hurt us, I know that. But there’s nothing I want less than to be trapped in this house with him. I already feel like I’m itching out of my skin, and the growing, aching want in my lower belly is getting warmer, more insistent.

If I’m around him for too long, it’s going to bring on a heat. And I can’t think of anything more embarrassing than that.

I haven’t had a heat since the night I got pregnant with Nora. In the entire time that I’ve cared for her, she’s never known me to have one. And she’s a smart girl. I don’t want her putting the pieces together about what that might mean.

In fact, I don’t want Nora around Xeran at all, if I can help it. She’s always been incredibly perceptive, and she just might start to put the pieces together. The slope of her nose, her cheekbones.

Her hair might be a carbon copy of my own, but those blue eyes are Xeran’s. They practicallyscreamSorel. When his brother Dallas looked at me, it reminded me with a startling clarity that in another world, he might have acted as my daughter’s uncle.

In a world with a nicer pack, with a better alpha supreme than Declan, without the devastation from the fires… we might have all been a happy family.

Instead, my hands shake as I try to figure out if I could magic her eyes to appear a different color. If I want to risk casting something onto her body like that. Xeran might look too closely at her and see the truth there in the sapphire of her irises.

Maybe I could try it on myself first. But would Xeran notice if the color of my eyes changed?

That thought almost makes me laugh out loud—of course he wouldn’t. I’d be surprised to learn that he ever even knew what color they were in the first place.

Back in high school, when we were alone, he made it seem like he might be the kind of man to care about the color of a woman’s eyes. Like he might put some thought into finding the right word for mine—chocolate or amber, cinnamon or cedar.

But that was all clearly a lie.

I push away the familiar swell of embarrassment that chokes my throat and force myself to focus on the matter at hand. I need to figure out how to get Nora and me out of here as quickly as possible. For her sake, I’ll be cordial to him. Act likethis is all part of the plan. But the second we can leave, we’ll get in the car and go.

“Mom?” Nora asks, her eyes cutting to the door. “Maybe we could go to the—”

“I think we should try to get some rest,” I say, cutting her off and clearing my throat.

I meet her eyes. They’re suspicious, wheels turning in her mind. If she were any other kid, she might protest. Instead, she goes to the en suite bathroom, brushes her teeth, and climbs into the bed next to me a moment later, her body slotting against mine.

In a few years, when she grows up more, Nora will need less sleep than me. If let go, I could sleep a full ten hours every night. After puberty—and her first shift—she’ll move into an alpha’s sleeping pattern.

But for right now, we’re more alike than different, and she falls asleep with her back to me. I watch her shoulders rise and fall, knowing I won’t be able to follow suit.

I’ll stay awake, listen for the sound of Xeran retiring to wherever he plans to sleep. Then I’m getting my daughter and me out of here.

***

When Xeran has been asleep for an hour, I rouse Nora at my side.

She blinks, still deep in sleep. But the moment she opens her eyes and registers my face, she must know to keep quiet, because she does. I hold my finger to my mouth, and we slideout of bed silently. I grab her backpack and pull it over my shoulders, and together, we move to the balcony off the room.

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