Page 29 of Brutal Alpha Bully

“Which is why I’d never flinch!” she hurls back at me like it’s an insult, rising up on her tiptoes so her face is closer to mine, and my hands itch to find the small of her back, to haul her body up against mine, to explore all the ways she’s changed since we were in high school together.

“You need to get out of my face, Seraphina,” I warn, looking back and forth between her eyes, then letting my gaze drop to her lips. When I find her eyes again, they’re focused on my mouth, and it takes everything in me not to lift her in my arms, slam her against the wall, and take her right here.

There’s something about her—that rough, solid countenance—that makes me want to see how far she can bend for me while making sure she never breaks.

“Make me,” she whispers back.

With each passing second, my resolve continues to waver. Standing right here, with her scent starting to wrap around me, the flighty thing gaining more weight with every second we stand together, I realize I can see a future in which I give Seraphina Winward everything she wants.

I see a future in which I’d give in.

And I can’t let that future happen.

Fortunately, I don’t have to break the moment because Nora’s voice comes floating down the stairs, forcing us apart. “Mom?”

Seraphina blinks at me, like she can’t fathom how she got into this situation. I clear my throat and cross my arms, looking away from her and forcing my body to behave.

“Coming,” she says, her voice only slightly shaky as she turns and leaves the kitchen, abandoning me to finish the dishes on my own.

Chapter 14 - Seraphina

I almost kissed Xeran last night.

And I wanted to. God, how I wanted to.

And how incredibly stupid it was to make a meal for him like that. To sit around the table with him and Nora. To imagine what evenings could be like with the three of us, just like that, going forward.

It would be so easy to slip into a life with him. To wait for him to come home. To watch him and Nora talk through every question she has.

I can feel the effect it’s having on my body to be near him. He might not be my mate like I assumed back in high school, but he has a strong alpha pull, and my traitorous omega body responds to it as if he were my mate, pulling me into his orbit and insisting that I stay there.

At night, when I climb into bed, I have to take deep breaths to calm myself, to remind my body of the hurt and heartache I went through the last time I allowed myself to get near Xeran Sorel. I play through every insult, every laugh, every time he and his friends would pass me in the hallway, their eyes lingering on me for a moment too long. Always the butt of his jokes.

When I woke up this morning, I realized something—I need to get out of this fucking house. I’m constantly wrapped in his scent, smelling him, feeling the weight of his presence. Going to sleep each night with the knowledge that Xeran would be stripping and sliding into bed at the end of the hall.

Thinking about how easy it would be for me to wait for Nora to fall asleep, walk down to his room, and climb into hisbed with him. I’m even starting to convince myself that it would be worth it, just to have him one more time. If he’s going to wrap things up here and go back to Chicago, and Nora and I are going to figure out a way to get out of here, then this might be my last chance.

These are the thoughts that run through my mind when it’s late and the omega tug in my gut grows stronger and stronger. And I think that getting out of the house might help lessen it, even make it go away just for a few hours.

And I desperately need the reprieve.

I decide that I’ll go into town. Let his brothers come after me—my powers are back to full strength, and, if anything, my magic has been sparking under my skin, begging to come out. Blasting another one of them might be kind of therapeutic.

But the moment I throw open the front door to leave, there’s someone standing on the porch.

“Uh, hi,” Soren Riggs says, running a hand through his curly red hair and peering past me into the house. “Is Xeran here?”

“Nope,” I say, breezing past him and heading toward my car. I can magic off the tracker that Xeran installed and kill the thing. He left early this morning—maybe wanting to avoid another encounter like the one we had last night. I’m trying to tell myself that I don’t care.

“Hold on a second,” Soren says, glancing nervously between me and the house, skipping along at my side like the puppy I didn’t ask for.

Nora is inside, reading in our room, and I’ve warded the hell out of it. I’m confident that nobody would dare to messwith Xeran’s house, but just in case that’s not true, Nora will be protected.

“No, thank you,” I say to Soren, getting to the car and flicking my wrist. A second later, the little tag falls to the gravel, and I kick it off into the grass. Soren watches with an open mouth, and I can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he puts this together.

“Xeran doesn’t want you to leave, does he?” Soren asks, reaching out like he might touch me, then drawing his hand back at the last second.

“I don’t see why that matters,” I say, unlocking the car and reaching for the driver’s seat. I can taste the freedom a little drive into town will bring me. After all, Xeran leaves us in the house every day. How much different will it be if I just head into town for a bit? The people in this pack may not respect me, but I’m hoping they wouldn’t just allow me to be abducted by the Sorels in broad daylight.

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