Page 50 of The Wolf's Bullied Pregnant Mate
“My parents were killed,” I said. “In… Bad circumstances. I was eighteen, but I hated Brooklyn. Everyone thought it was funny to play the practical jokes on the witch. The one labeled every name you can think of. It was excruciating, and I’d spent my teenage years begging my mom and dad to let me be home-schooled. After they died, I found everything was noisier and busier than ever. There was no peace, clean air, or place to go and escape. I’m sure there would have been if I had looked harder, found contacts, but I didn’t. In my mom’s belongings I found a picture of her and my dad holding up a cod in the ocean. The back of the photograph marked the location as Azure Cove. I got on a flight the day after their funeral to the mainland, got a boat over, and met my grandmother. Next thing I knew, I was part of a much bigger coven than I realized.”
Zephyr laughed. “I know that feeling.”
“Which one?”
“Finding out your life is bigger than you imagine.” He gazed up at the stars. “My bloodline holds a lot of history that I can’t keep ignoring.”
I nodded.
“Why do you hate witches so much, Zephyr?”
“Why do you hate shifters?”
The answers hung between us in the silence. It hit me in that moment how much we mirrored one another. Our lives forever changed by death, choices sending us far away from home, and a new enemy gained.
“A witch killed your brother,” I whispered.
“In cold blood,” he answered. Then he paused. “But… Adalyn, it wasn’t just any witch.”
“What do you mean?”
Zephyr turned to gaze at me. “It was a Lindell witch from your coven. Bloodline or sworn-in, I don’t know. But I hunted her down through any state I heard rumors in.” His mouth wasset into a grimace. “I don’t regret anything I did in the name of revenge.”
Weight slammed into me as I gazed at the man who had been the cause of some of my covens’ deaths. And I couldn’t comprehend it. It made me uneasy, as if the floor suddenly had been taken away.
“A shifter killed my parents,” I told him. “And it doesn’t make us equal, or what you did okay, but… I thought about killing shifters myself after their deaths, and I think I would have, had I known for sure if anyonewasone. I was with them, in my back garden.” The memories tore through me, cleaving my heart. “The wolf launched over the gate, tore my mother’s throat out. My father tried to step in, but he barely took a step. I couldn’t cast quick enough to do anything, to protect them, or myself. But the wolf suddenly dropped to the floor, and shifted into a male. Blood began pouring from his mouth. My mom had spelled her own blood poisonous, lest she be killed. She would take her attacker with her. The shifter was dead within minutes, and I didn’t know what to do. I called my mom’s best friend, and she helped me.”
I remembered lying in their bed for a week after that, curled up, my eyes on the window outside, waiting for another wolf to come and finish me off so I could be with them, too.
Nothing else had come.
I had been left alone.
“And then I came to Azure Cove,” I said. “And suddenly, I had footsteps to fill and a coven to honor in a way my mom hadn’t. She had remained loyal to witches and their beliefs but she had turned her back on the island here. She hadn’t wanted to protect or save it, not like my grandmother or I did.”
“You carry your grandmother’s burden,” Zephyr guessed.
I nodded. “Sometimes it’s too heavy,” I admitted. “Sometimes, I don’t want to be consumed by anger and hatred.”
That’s why you feel so good to give into, I thought quietly to myself, knowing I wouldn’t admit this yet.
Zephyr cleared his throat. “When I went into the military, I thought I would never wash my hands clean of blood. It’s ironic because I only stained them more.” Without thinking, I linked my fingers through his. “But it felt good tohonemy need to do something with this suffocating anger. This… This feud. My dad had always warned me about witches, but my mom told me a different story. A story about my bloodline and unity and an island. I thought it was just a story, but…”
He shrugged.
I was too lost in thoughts of my dream.We were always meant to reunite our bloodlines, Adalyn.
I froze.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I answered. “I just… Dreams.”
Zephyr let out a soft laugh. “You’ve had them too?”
I looked at him, surprised. “Yes. Mine are… Well, they’re about you. About us.”
“Mine too,” he answered. “After that day, Hec and I came to the Emporium, and I realized you were a Lindell, then they turned darker. I imagined you were the witch that killed my brother. I know you’re not, but you know how dreams are.”
