Page 27 of Brutal Alpha Bully

I can’t tell Nora to put the books back, to leave them outside his room instead. It will break her heart, and besides, it might be good to have something for her to do. So instead, I just sigh and nod.

“Yes, you can read them.”

She hugs them to her chest, whispering something I can’t quite make out. Maybe I can’t tell her to put them back, but I cando something to make sure we’re even. That the good deed tally doesn’t go to Xeran this time.

Stepping out into the hallway, I roll up my sleeves, take a deep breath, and get to work.

Chapter 13 - Xeran

When I come home from fighting another wildfire on the west side of the town, I think that I’ve stepped into the wrong house. I actually turn around and look at the front door, through the little window on it, to make sure I’m staring out at the same view I saw as a little boy. To confirm that this is, in fact, the same childhood home that raised me and my brothers.

There are a lot of reasons to think I’m trespassing. Or that I’ve stepped through a wormhole into an alternate dimension—if one were to believe in that sort of thing.

For one, it smellsgood. Not like cobwebs or dust bunnies, but faintly of cleaner, and strongly of lilacs. I see why that is when I turn around and spot a fresh vase of them in the entryway. The flowers are sitting in clear water, their blooms letting off the gentle scent of June in Colorado.

The further I walk, the more I discover about the things that have changed. A hole in the hallway—which I distantly remember being put there by Dallas just before our dad died—has been completely repaired. It looks like it never existed in the first place, the hole plastered over and matching perfectly with the paint around it.

What used to be a loose railing on the stairs leading to the second story has been screwed more securely into the drywall and…re-stained, from the looks of it.

The floors are shining, mopped and polished. The walls no longer contain a draping, layered swath of cobwebs. Even the tallest corners are free from dust and spiders. When I flip on the various lights, I find that the light bulbs have been swapped out, so they all turn on.

“What…?” I whisper to myself, thinking back to my dad’s stories about Colorado cryptids. Did he ever mention one that would come and repair your home for you? Like a Home Depot tooth fairy?

Even the drapes are clean and pulled open, the windows no longer smeared with the gray soot of a dozen daemonic wildfires. Instead, they’re crystal-clear, the setting sun over the mountains breathtaking in the distance.

As I move toward the back of the house, I smell more than cleaner and lilacs. I smell tomato, mozzarella, oregano, and it makes my mouth water.

And in the kitchen, laughing together, are Seraphina and Nora standing by the stove. On the kitchen table is one of the books I lent Nora, a little piece of paper sticking out in the middle, presumably a bookmark.

The sight of them laughing in this kitchen that for so many years didn’t get any use aside from teenage boys throwing open the fridge to take a swig of milk directly from the jug—it does something strange to me. Like taking me back in time and pushing me forward, all at once.

“Xeran,” Seraphina says, and when she turns around, I catch the glint of a challenge in her eyes.

It’s at this moment that I realizeshedid all this.

“You…” I clear my throat and stand up taller in the doorway, my eyes darting between her and Nora, who is looking at her mother intently. “You did all this?”

“Nora helped,” Seraphina says dismissively, as though Nora being involved could explain the sheer amount of tasks they completed today. “As a thank you for the books.”

I swallow, thinking about whatever had come over me last night as I gathered them up, depositing them at her door. For some reason, there was something about Nora that reminded me of myself at that age. Always wanting to know more, seeking information. Even pressing at the adults in my life.

My father always used to say that was one of the ways he knew I would be the one to take over the pack. Because as a child, I’d asked him things, pressured him to give me answers to questions he’d never considered before. I never let him get away with a “because I said so,” which seemed to me like an idiot’s excuse for not thinking things through, or not having a decent justification.

“Dinner is almost ready,” Seraphina says, glancing at me quickly and wrinkling her nose. “Go wash up. You smell foul.”

Nora laughs loudly, then claps her hand over her mouth. I look between the two of them, mind racing. What in the world is going on here?

I thought Seraphina hated me. Last night, she made it very clear that she didn’t want me anywhere near her daughter. And now, here she is, making me dinner?

“Hello? Xeran?” She raises an eyebrow in my direction. “Do you remember how to take a shower?”

“Yes,” I say, voice rough, and when I meet her eyes, I know she’s thinking the same thing as I am. About the time we’d gone to the hot springs together and slipped into one of the curtained showers, when she’d wrapped her body around mine and I’d held her in my arms under the water. “I remember how to shower,” I add.

“Then go do it,” Seraphina says, brushing a lock of blond hair from her face, the blush on her cheeks giving her away. “So we can eat.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m soot-free and sitting down at the table with them, still not sure what’s going on, and why she’s being so nice to me. How can she go from accusing me of keeping her here against her will to being a contractor, cleaner, and cook all in one?

Nora asks me more questions about the fires, and Seraphina watches the conversation with a close eye, like I might poison her daughter’s thinking quickly without her knowing.

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