Page 15 of Beta Hybrid

Divina comes and sits with me on the soft dirt ground, without bothering to create furniture with her smoky power. ‘Why would he behave this way?’

I cast my gaze out into the woods, somewhere far away. ‘My hand-to-hand training has barely improved. He still beats me every day. I think he’s ashamed of me. I’m not a fighter.’ I huff a bitter laugh. ‘I’m not a wolf.’

Something punctures. My fingers dig into the earth, scraping at whatever I can grasp, the anger in my belly fanned hotter.

Divina’s face is a round, pale blur. I don’t look at her when she says, ‘I don’t think so, little hybrid.’

I glare at the early-morning clouds that waft through the sky. Grey, but close enough to silver to make me think of those eyes. Hard like steel. He’s being an asshole. Again. When will I ever learn?

Divina sets a hand on my knee. ‘Look,’ she says softly.

It wasn’t my fingers which dug into the earth, piercing. I stare down at my vines burying into the earth around me, digging, spearing. My mouth drops open a little. ‘What…?’

‘Careful, little fae. Draw them home.’

‘I didn’t know I was doing that.’ I withdraw my vines.

‘Your anger fuelled it. Fae magic can be tricky, it seems.’

I lower my gaze. ‘It’s getting stronger though, right? My fae power.’

‘Oh, indeed. Of that, I have no doubt. Look, perhaps hand-to-hand combat isn’t something you excel at. That’s fine. You’re not a wolf. It doesn’t come naturally to you as it does them. And Mordecai is an alpha at that.’

Anger washes over me. ‘I am sick of this!’ Magic flashes out of me like a wave, and a dozen cracks sound around us. I start, my head whipping.

‘I can see that,’ Divina says. ‘You need to find control, Zenna.’

‘What was that?’

‘Your anger. It permeates all of yourself, all your powers.’ As she speaks, a dozen tall trees thunder to the ground. A few cries rise into the early morning air.

‘I did that with my witch power?’ I get up and look around. ‘I’ve never done something like that before.’

Divina rises smoothly to your feet. ‘Now, you have. Be careful of your emotions, little one. I’ve never met a hybrid. I do not know your potential.’

A low howl sounds through the woods, sending the little hairs on my forearms on edge.

Divina sighs. ‘You might want to go back to the encampment.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve just destroyed part of their property. We’re guests here,’ she reminds me, taking my shoulders and leading me back.

I glance around. ‘They were just trees. And it was an accident.’

Another howl sounds in the distance.

‘Let us hope that is all that was lost,’ Divina says. ‘And not a cub on an early walk, practicing his hunts.’

Chapter Seven

Mordecai

Vale and I have spent the past eight days running through the vast woods, our long legs pounding through the grass, paws leaping from rock to rock and over streams in wolf form.

It gives me a break from my restless sleeps, from worrying about Zenna, and forces me to focus on the shift, and where to plant my feet, lest I slip and crack my head open on a rock. Or a tree. Or drown in the water.

I was up early this morning, so before I even had breakfast, I grabbed Vale and we were off. He didn’t ask, nor complain.

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