Filed To Story: Claimed by the Alpha I Hate Book Read Free
Not trusting my voice, I replied with a nod.
Holly stopped as she passed and leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“Tristan, Giovanni, and Zeke are out looking for Nolan. They won’t let anything happen to him.” She gave me a small, tentative smile at the end before following Mason and Clara out the door.
“Did you want me to-” Breyona began to ask, but I cut her off.
“Stay.” I croaked, my eyes still on grandma.
My best friend nodded and approached the bed at my side.
The strength solidifying like slabs of granite in grandma’s eyes crumpled the moment I took her hand in my own. Never had she felt so thin and frail before, so close to death that my heart spasmed in my chest and thrashed as it tried to break free.
“I tried to save him, Daisy.” Her voice broke, and so did another piece of my heart.
I closed my eyes, fighting the agony that fell like a torrential downpour.
“I know you did, grandma.”
Her lip quivered, and Breyona stepped in to take her other hand.
“I watched him die.” She whispered.
“I should have been there. I should have been the one to save him.” I hissed through my clenched teeth, my jaw aching painfully but it was the only way I’d leave this room without dissolving into tears.
Her grip on my hand tightened, and I looked up to see her shaking her head. Sweat clung to the sides of her soft face, her hair plastered to the hollows of her cheeks. Breyona, tracking where my eyes lingered, reached out to brush the hair away.
“No, sweetheart. Do not blame yourself for this.” Even heavy with grief, her voice held strength. It quickly became tainted with uncertainty as she continued. “Daisy, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“I know, grandma. Please don’t say it.”
“I have to make sure you understand. I’m so sorry, Daisy.” Her voice cracked. “Nolan killed your brother.”
It was another blow altogether hearing it from her, from the woman capable of so much love that she’d captured the hearts of all my friends, of everyone who had the pleasure of knowing her. I clutched my stomach, drowning in not only my own agony, but the agony I felt pulsating down the mate-bond.
My mate-my beautiful, horrible mate knew what he had done, knew what he had taken from me.
“Listen to me and listen to me well.”
Grandma said, trying to sound stern but it was hard to do considering her face was a mass of black and blue splotches. “You know your mate better than anyone else. It might’ve been his body that did this, but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Nolan. I looked into his eyes, Daisy. You know what I saw? I saw nothing. No wolf, no man. Just emptiness, like he wasn’t even there.”
I inhaled sharply. “You’re positive that’s what you saw?”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin, wincing as she attempted to nod. “That’s not all, either.
There was someone else there, a witch. I couldn’t make out her features. The power was out, and she had a cloak over her head, but while…while Nolan attacked your brother she-she came for me.”
Grandma’s eyes fluttered shut, a tear escaping her swollen lid to trail down a bruised cheek.
“I tried so hard, but I’m old and my body just isn’t as strong as it was.” Her eyes opened, and she looked down at her hands like they were a puzzle in need of solving.” I’ve only been able to use my magic in my baking, but when the witch attacked me it- it exploded from my hands. I wounded her,
Daisy. Hit her square in the face, hard enough to make her scream. I’m betting you she has a mark or scar of some sort from it.” 3
Hearing my grandma’s version of what happened, it tore open the wound in my chest until I could no longer tell where it began or where it ended. In order to breathe -to survive, I needed to focus on something else. Anything else.
I latched onto the vengeance in my dad’s voice, onto the strength in my grandma’s eyes, and onto the iciness of Sean’s skin and the serene look that painted his face, as though he hadn’t died a violent, painful death.
“I’m going to find her, grandma, and I’m going to make her pay.” I promised, letting her fingers slip through my own as I turned around and walked out the door.
“Daisy-Daisy, wait! Where are you going?” Breyona called out, her voice echoing down the empty hallway.
I turned, remembering that I actually didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was that I needed to do something, anything to smother the pain holding me in its serrated grip.
“Where was Cordelia’s body found?” I asked impatiently.
Beneath the pain, a small wave of guilt washed over me. This wasn’t Breyona’s fault. She’d been through just as much as I had, and it wasn’t right to take my frustrations out on her.
“I-I can just take you there if you want. I’m meeting up with Giovanni anyway…you know, to help find
Nolan.” She tacked the second part on quietly.
It was a bit grating the way everyone was walking on eggshells around me, like I was a bomb whose timer was slowly ticking away. Staring into Breyona’s eyes, watching the warm flecks of brown deepen in color, made me realize that since her parents were murdered, that was how everyone’s been treating her as well.
If there was one person who understood, it was Breyona.
“Perfect. Let’s go.” I replied, softening my tone.
I had to bite back a snarl when a wave of pain vibrated down the mate-bond.
Even without grandma’s side of things, I would’ve never believed that Nolan had…had done what he did of his own accord. It went against everything he believed in and stood for. More than anything I wanted to soothe his pain, but all I could hear were my dad’s words rattling in my skull.
I needed to find the witch first, then I would go to Nolan.
I’d take every ounce of his pain, piece every broken shard back together again and bind them with the love I had for him. Love that hadn’t faded in the slightest despite the fact that his body was the weapon that killed my brother.
“If you guys find Nolan, keep him safe for me, okay? Tell him I know what happened and that it wasn’t his fault.”
Breyona’s grief-stricken eyes softened as she nodded. “Of course, Daisy.”
Once outside, Breyona was quick to shift and bend the shadows around our forms, propelling us through darkness that spat us out nearly fifteen minutes away from the hospital.
We stood in the mulch of a children’s playground, and while I didn’t recognize the jungle gym, I did recognize the surrounding park. The clusters of square hedges and yellow wildflowers stood out like a beacon, even in the dark.
I lost track of how many times I’d passed this place on the way to speak with Tessa in the prison cells.
The bright paint of the slide and monkey bars was muted by the cover of darkness. radiating from the forest. During the day, the park was downright cheery. There would always be families out and about, pushing strollers and toting around squealing children.
I’d never seen the place so desolate before, so ominous in a way I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
The swings that swayed lightly in the breeze were in need of oiling, squeaking in tune to the merry-go-
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?