Page 9 of The Wolf's Bullied Pregnant Mate
I sent back my affirmative and locked my phone. He was right; I really needed to get some sleep if I was going to do a decent job tomorrow. Or, rather, today. I groaned. Knowing Hec and Sweeney, they’d want to be up and out by the crack of dawn. I groaned, shoving the thick hair back off my forehead.
Sleep. Yeah, I needed some damn sleep.
But I couldn’t get Adalyn off my mind when I climbed back into bed. I was thefun guy, the talkative one, the one who diffused tension rather than created it. I teased and prodded at people, but I neverstartedthe aggravation. There was just something about the witch that brought out the worst in me. I hadn’t meant it—had I, about her being pathetic. She had proven me wrong, hadn’t she? Damn it.
“Get out of my head, witch,” I muttered.
I thought of her, submerged to her ankles in the pool by the waterfall. She had known I was there in the end but she had been looking for another enemy than me lurking in my wolf form in the woods. I hadn’t been looking for her but tracking demons with Frazer. Once again, things had fallen too quiet on the Cove.
But then there Adalyn had been: a witch in water, bathing in the moonlight. I had snarled, hating the sight, not able to look away. What was she doing to me? I loathed her. I would haverather clawed through her throat, let that pool run red with her blood, than be civil with her. Her whole damn coven deserved to die for the grief they had brought upon my family.
Soon, sleep found me, mercifully pulling me away from my roiling thoughts of a witch’s eyes that were like reflective black pools.
***
“Zane,” I cried, shaking the shoulder of my twin brother, who lay in his wolf form. His blood was everywhere—more blood than I thought possible for one thing to bleed. My sobs choked through my throat as I curled my fingers into his blood-soaked fur. It was the same color as mine—we had been identical in both forms. Brothers, two hearts, forever in tandem, linked by blood.
But now his had stopped.
All because of the witch with hair as red as my brother’s blood. She floated in midair, several feet above my brother’s form. Her hands were coated in blood, and her face was shrouded in darkness. All that I could see were her lips, painted ruby red. When she saw my face, heard my cries and pleas for my brother to wake up, she only smiled. Her teeth flashed.
The witch lunged at me, teeth bared. When she got closer, I saw Adalyn’s face.
I woke with a yell, fisting my sheets as I flung myself out of bed. I could still feel sharp nails and fangs on my skin, the witch trying to attack me before she had fled. I had been left with my brother’s broken body, immobilized on the side of the road, unable to call for help because all I could do was watch myown blood mingle with his. We had been seventeen at the time, mirror images of one another in every aspect.
The day after his funeral, I had gotten his name inked onto my head, forever imprinting my brother onto my skin. Even with the ink still healing, I had torn through states, following every lead the Lindell coven I could find. They had hidden well. Eventually, my hands stained with the blood of minor witches, I had retreated into the military.
“Put that anger to use,” my older brother had told me. “Don’t dishonor Zane’s memory by bringing more hell upon our family’s name. Promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to put this vengeance behind you.”
I had promised him I would, while vowing, behind my teeth, to hunt every witch to extinction if I could. The military had provided a distraction, a place to hone my anger and need for blood, but now I had been presented with an opportunity.
Adalyn wasn’ttheLindell witch who had murdered my brother, no matter how my dreams tried to twist it, but she was another one to eradicate. A powerful one at that, even if I had taunted her otherwise.
“Zeph!” Frazer yelled through the door. “You up?”
“Yeah,” I called out, hating how raspy my voice sounded, thick with a lack of sleep. “Give me a second.”
“You got five minutes, or you’re getting the bucket, man. Hec’s waiting.”
The bucketwas the ice bucket, something we had all subjected one another to when sleep had clung to us too deeply in the desert when there was work to be done.
“Hec’s probably been waiting since an hour before dawn,” I muttered. I hurried to get dressed. I donned a black hoodieover a black t-shirt, and sweats, the outfit light enough to allow good movement. It wasn’t what I usually wear, but I would be comfortable, at least.
I shoved the sleeves of my hoodie up before heading downstairs. Hector and Sweeney were ready to go.
“No Johnson today?” I asked Sweeney, who had braided his hair back off his face.
“Nah,” he answered. “We drank last night. He’s passed out, but I said I’d do his job today.”
“And I’m sort of doing Sweeney’s job,” Hector butted in, already peering at a map of Azure Cove. “So there’s been some demon activity on the western coast, right past the surf shack. I text Adalyn, and she knows the guy who owns it, so—”
“Please don’t tell me she’s coming with us,” I ground out. I had no problem facing the trauma of my brother’s death. I had long put those nightmares to rest, but Adalyn’s presence was messing with my head, twisting the day I had found my twin.
“As much as I’d love to see your face if I told youyes, she’s not,” Hector said. “She’s busy today.”
“Doing what?” I asked as if offended shehadn’tbeen coming with us despite not wanting her to be there. God, she had my head wrecked.
Both men looked at me. Sweeney cocked a brow at me. Hector shook his head before going back to his digital map.
