Page 5 of The Wolf's Bullied Pregnant Mate
“It’s all bullshit,” I reminded him.
“Witches have protected this island for centuries,” Adalyn shot back. “Keep talking, and you’ll find out what a hex feels like.”
I clenched a fist over my chest. “Oh, no!” I cried sarcastically. “A hex!”
But before she could remind me of how the counter had left my palms bubbled with blisters, I caught sight of a piece of old parchment nailed to the wall above the cluttered counter. It had symbols going down in a vertical line, some sort of ancient witch language that I had never learned, but those symbols were ones I knew.
They were engraved in my brain.
L.I.N.D.E.L.L.
Adalyn was from or part of the Lindell clan?
“Lindell,” I said aloud.
Adalyn looked at me. “You can read our ancient witch symbols?”
“Only that word,” I answered. The world faded away, and my sight narrowed on her.
Lindell.
Blood flashed through my mind. The tattooed head of my twin brother, dead on the road, his car totaled, his body broken and draped over the arm of a witch who had taken him from us.
No.No, no, no.
Hector’s eyes burned into me. “Zeph?”
“I’ll be—” I choked on my words, blindly stumbling back, through the store, shoving at the door and out onto the sidewalk. I hurried to the side of the building, gasping. I slumped against the wall.
My fist clenched, and I pulled it back, only to slam it into the wall.
I would eradicate every last fucking witch in that clan if it was the last thing I did, starting with the one right in front of me.
Chapter 3 - Adalyn
“Wow,” I breathed, looking around Harper’s cottage several hours later. “Its… Homely.”
When she had come to the island, Harper had taken up the abandoned cottage my grandmother owned. It had been the place where she had raised my mom before she moved to live above the store. Now Harper was settled, and she and Alex were making this place a proper home.
“It was before,” Harper laughed.
“Yeah, but not like this.”
Despite both of them being tidy there was a homely messiness to the cottage now. A mess that saida family lives here. Toys and children’s books were scattered across surfaces. Laundry was hanging out to dry on a rack in the kitchen. There was a distinct smell of tomato and garlic as if somebody had cooked that afternoon. The walls were now decorated with not only pictures of Harper and the children but also of Alex and the triplets, Alex and Harper, and, of course, the group he had arrived in Azure Cove with.
I turned my gaze away from one of Alex and Zephyr on quad bikes in a desert with huge sunglasses shielding their faces, their smiles bright. Behind that smile was the venomous man I had dealt with in the store.
“I burned Zephyr’s hands today,” I announced to Harper.
“Youwhat?”
She stared at me, mouth agape, from her spot on the sofa. Her sweatpants-clad legs were curled up beneath her, her hands cupping a mug of tea. She looked soft and comfortable in one of Alex’s hoodies, a less stressed version of the woman I had known these past four years. Maybe finding lovedidsoften a person.
I didn’t want to be soft. Not if it meant giving up everything I had worked for.
“He insulted me,” I told her. “And he insulted my abilities, so I gave him a taste of what witches can do.”
Harper blinked. “You’re terrifying.”
