Page 12 of Wolf Heart

“No,” I gasp, stumbling back and hitting the edge of my dresser. Glass bottles I’ve collected clank and several crash to the floor. “You’re lying.”

She has to be. She’s the only mother I’ve ever known. Dad would’ve told me if she wasn’t my real mother. Wouldn’t he? Tears burn my eyes and my vision goes blurry. No matter how fast I blink to stop them, tears spill down my cheeks.

“Why are you telling me this now? Why not as soon as father—” I can’t even say the word. How every time I think of him it’s like a fresh wound that guts me. How life was perfect when he was with us and then everything crumbled away.

“If I had told a soul about us harboring a witch,” she says the word like a curse, her face twisted up in disgust. “I’d have been thrown out with you. This way, you’re already banished and I can claim you had me under your spell.”

If I am a witch or half of one, I’m not very good cause I’d have at least made her kind like she was before and not a drunk now.

“Get out of my house,” she screams.

Her words strike melike physical blows and something inside me shrivels. The last little bit of caring I had for her is strangled.

“You try to come back here and I’ll tell everyone what you really are.”

I take a deep breath, even though my lungs feel like they're collapsing in on themselves, and glare at her. “Fine. You’ve never been a good mother or wolf to me.”

Not after the misery she’s put me through all these years, but it still hurts like a bitch that she hates me this much. That she's not my real mom. The indifference and cruelty aren't an act or even the alcohol. She feels nothing for me except hatred.

“I’m sick of taking care of you.” She glowers, running a hand through her hair, pulling at the roots already graying.

“When have you ever done anything for me?” My voice shakes with tears. “All you’ve ever done is find ways to let me down—”

“Just leave. Everything you touch, you destroy. Your wolf. Your father.”

I jerk, feeling the sting of guilt that locks in my chest. I push past her out the front door, knowing I’ll never be back, never see her again. It’s the most painful thing I’ve ever done. It feels like part of my heart has been cut out, taken away from me forever.

When the pack finds out the truth about me being a half-breed, they’ll hunt me down and kill me. Part of me almost wishes they would. That way I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of all of this.

On shaky legs, I walk out of the house, the only home I've ever known. Everything is falling apart. What am I going to do? How am I going to survive on my own with nothing?

Not even my wolf to help me.

Bitterness coats the back of my throat. Part of me wants to beg the Alpha for another chance. Hell, to even take me as Casey's grotesque pack slut for all the males to fuck.

My stomach heaves and I fall to my knees. I dig my hands intothedirtasIdry heave over and over.EachtimeItry tocatchmybreath,it’sfollowed byanotherwave of bile.

When my stomach calms enough to stand, I numbly push up to my feet. I can't stay here. Not like this. Not with everyone hating me and my mother, no, my stepmother hating my guts. The abuse would only get worse now. But she and this pack are all I have left. Everything and everyone I've grown up with is here.

Dozens of eyes were on me, followed by growls and snarls.

There’s no way I can sneak back inside the pack's territory. They’ll tear me limb from limb if I try and I bet Casey would be leading the pack on that chance even without the added craziness of me being half-witch.

What she said can’t be true. Except, I feel the ring of it in my soul.

I glance down at my hands, then squeeze them into fists as I walk. It is a good thing I don’t have magic or I would have fried Casey’s ass a long time ago.

Swallowing my pride and all the hurt I’ve carried around for years, I step across the barrier. A whoosh of power blows against me and I nearly fall on my ass. Darla had told me witches used to live with the pack. They erected these invisible magical forcefields to keep the unwanted out. Then the witches and wolves started to war against each other and split off with the witches heading west.

Our lands border theirs on this one side with the north, south, and part of the east taken up by other wolf packs.

My wolf pines again, and I hiss out a breath when it feels like she’s raking her claws against my heart.

“Aren’t you far from your home?” a man steps out of the shadows.

I jump back, raising my hands in defense. I take a step away from him and debate if I can run fast enough to find help. Not that I know a thing about this side of the barrier. I’ve only snuck out one time before when I spotted the human boy and we’d spent the day together by the lake near here.

The man before me chuckles and the full moon illuminates him. My breath catches at his size. Hard eyes that burn with a cold blue fire stare at me. His body is bulging with muscles and tattoos of bones, skulls and flames that seem to glow in the moonlight.

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