Page 21 of Brutal Alpha Bully

On the first day that I can make it up and down the stairs without completely losing my breath, I peek into what must be a laundry room and see a pile of towels, washed and dried butunfolded. There are several baskets of clothes like that, and I realize Xeran has been so busy lately that he probably didn’t have time to do anything more than pull them out of the dryer.

Without thinking, I step inside, shoving a basket of shirts into the dryer to fluff. When Nora and I lived in the suburbs, I did laundry for some clients to help us get by. It was something I could do while at home and that, for the most part, the other people in the pack seemed to find acceptable.

I used to spend a considerable amount of time working with other people’s laundry, washing and drying, ironing, folding. So when I pull the clothes out and swap them with towels, beginning to fold, the motion is almost therapeutic.

As I fold, I think about how long it will be until I’m feeling well enough to come up with another way to get out of here.

The car is out. Walking through the woods won’t work. But maybe I could magic us away? I was able to move Nora when I was scared back at my parents’ house. Maybe if I got my magic strong enough, worked on my control, I could move both of us at once.

It would be a risky plan, but it could work. Maybe I could even move Nora first, wait a few hours, and then send myself after her.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

I jump, snapping away from the towel in my hand and turning to face Xeran, his hands braced on the doorway. For a second, I almost believe he knows what was going on inside my head. Could hear my scheming.

But that’s not possible.

“Seraphina?” he presses, but I’m caught up in the sight of him standing there. It does something to me. He’s wearing adrenched black tank and a pair of athletic-fitting shorts, his hair sweaty and pushed back from his face. There’s a tattoo on the inside of his left arm, but I can’t make it out from here.

Above all else, he looksstrong. He looks like the kind of man who could carry you from a burning building. And something inside me aches to be carried for once.

“What?” I ask, finally finding my voice, glancing between him and the towel. “We needed some towels—”

“Notthat.You were using—” he lowers his voice, as though someone might hear him “—magic.”

I blink, then glance at the towels below me. I was casting without really even trying, the energy flowing through my fingers. Giving the towels a clean line, folding them faster. Setting them down and flicking my wrist to manipulate them rather than going through the motions myself.

Just like I used to do when I did laundry for money. Just like I grew up doing, to help my mother with her mending and household chores.

“It’s faster,” I finally manage, shrugging one shoulder, trying to be nonchalant about it. The truth is that I didn’t mean to do it, or for Xeran to see it, but I’m so tired of constantly being told I’m disgusting just because I’m different. “It doesn’t hurt anyone—”

“Have you learnednothing?” Xeran explodes, taking another step toward me, his eyes darkening as he looks down at me. Everything about him is frenetic, his chest rising and falling, his jaw working like he can barely keep himself from attacking. My heart picks up—a reaction to the threat of him, and nothing else. “We all know you were casting back then—”

“You knownothingabout what happened,” I snap back, taking my turn to interrupt him, to step toward him and poke a finger into his chest. His eyes flick down quickly, and for a second, I can picture him grabbing my wrist. Yanking me toward him. Making our chests collide.

And I almost crave it. A sick, twisted part of mewantsthe contact, wants to feel the strength of his fingers on my arm. A touch that I’ve been starved of for nearly a decade.

“So why don’t youtellme, then?” he asks, and if it weren’t for the growl in the back of his throat, I might actually think he was in earnest.

But he’s not. There’s a certain demand there. The haughty command of a man who was once on the path to being the leader of the pack.

“It’s none of your business,” I whisper, shaking my head at him. Somewhere in the pit of my belly, I feel the familiar warm tug, a swirl and a pull, and realize what it is.

The omega inside me reacting to him. To the man I believe to be my mate.

Panicking, I go on, the words flying out of me, “In case you forgot, you made it perfectly clear that you wanted nothing to do with me, Xeran. You ran away. Don’t walk around here like you’re the alpha supreme, demanding answers and rattling off commands, when you fucked off and letDeclantake the position.”

The second the words are out of my mouth, I know I’ve gone too far. It’s a gross oversimplification of a situation that I’m not even sure I fully understand. But the lingering hurt is there, the sense of betrayal that not only did he leave the pack, but he leftme.

He hurtme.

And he made sure every single person in our school—in the community—knew that I wasn’t enough for him. That nothing would ever happen between us. And I was stupid enough to think that I might have had a chance.

“Seraphina—” he starts, the corners of his mouth turning down, but there’s another tug low in my belly, and I know that all I really need is to get some space.

So, I do what I’ve just accused him of.

I run away.

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