Page 45 of Brutal Alpha Bully

We’re not mates. He made that much clear, and even if that wasn’t the truth—which I can’t even let myself think about—it would be far too late for him to go back on it now. Lying about a mating bond would be ruinous socially, and if Xeran hadanyinclinations toward the alpha supreme position, that wouldn’t help his favorability among pack members.

Not to mention the fact that Nora and I have been living with him. If people weren’t talking about it before that incident with my mother in the grocery store, they are certainly talking about it now.

He drops us off at the hotel for a while to pack up and get ready to go, then returns with his truck bed full of canisters.

“What are those?” Nora asks while he’s throwing our bags in the back.

“Those are extinguishing canisters,” he says, closing the top and walking her around to the side of the truck. “Equal parts holy water and ash from daemonic fires.”

“Does holy water really work?” Nora asks, her eyes wide as he circles the other side of the truck and hops into the driver’s seat.

Xeran pauses with his hand on the key, then glances at her thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. It could be just the ash, stifling the fire. But we’ve never really wanted to try the mixture with regular water. It would be an experiment with much too high a cost.”

Nora nods and leans against me, our activities from the day—and the sugar—apparently hitting her hard.

Xeran and I ride in silence for most of the ride, listening to pop hits on the radio. Maybe we’re both in our own heads. Maybe there’s not a whole lot that we can talk about with Nora sitting between us, clutching her stuffed shark to her chest.

Then, a few miles out of town, the handheld radio Xeran has hanging from the rearview mirror crackles to life.

“This is an emergency broadcast.”

The voice is rough, staticky and hard to make out. Xeran sits at attention, reaching out to turn the music down and the handheld radio up so we can catch the last part of what the broadcast is saying.

“—massive fire burning due north of Fort Collins, currently heading toward Glacier Park and Silverville. All residents are advised to evacuate immediately. These fires are burning at record temperatures and inflicting maximum damage. The Colorado Fire Agency is requesting all available—”

I can barely breathe.

Xeran’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel, and that’s when we see it. In the distance, up over the ridge that Silverville is famous for, an orange glow paints the horizon like a false sunrise. An orange glow, just faintly tipped with blue. Something the human eye might miss, even as they address the record-high burning temps. Even as they try to examine the sporadic nature of the fire, point to something scientific that makes sense.

“No,” I whisper, my hands tightening around Nora, my mind going back to that terrifying night I woke up to find that blue fire in our house, eating it to the ground.

Xeran says nothing but presses harder on the accelerator. The glow burns brighter on the horizon as we fly down the mountain highway. What started as a smudge of color quickly turns into a wall of light that makes my eyes water, and when I tip my nose into the air, I easily catch the rotten, sulfuric scent of daemon fire.

This is nothing like the little fires Xeran and his friends have been fighting on the outskirts of town. It’s too big, too much, and already kissing the Silverville Creek.

I’m not a firefighter, and I don’t know much about the mechanics. But everything I’ve learned about daemon fire tells me that water isn’t going to be enough to stop this fire from forging ahead.

“What’s the situation?” Xeran asks when his phone rings.

I can tell it’s Kalen on the other side. He’s talking fast, breaking up, and it’s clear that Xeran is struggling to hear him, too.

“Any casualties?” Xeran asks, and my heart stops.

Kalen goes on, talking about the destruction, and I try to focus on my breathing, try to keep myself from panicking as we grow closer to town. I can feel the air around us heating.

When Xeran gets off the phone, he drives even faster, the speedometer climbing up past eighty. Trees blur past us in dark smears, the glow ahead only getting brighter.

What has happened once is happening again.

Silverville is beginning to burn.

Chapter 23 - Xeran

My truck skids to a halt in what used to be the driveway. Half of the trees around the property are gone, the sky startlingly bare in their absence. There’s nothing but blackened stumps left, reaching toward the smoke-thick sky like accusatory fingers.

The house, somehow, stands untouched. Likely the result of Phina’s magic from the last time a fire was near. Any wards she laid down, any protective spells she cast—they may still be holding strong. I should thank her, or say something, but there’s no time, and I can’t seem to get the words from my throat.

This is entirely my fault.

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