“Tell me how exactly you reckon you’re one of us.” When she didn’t immediately reply, he stooped closer, his breath brushing against her hair. “Go on, mutt. Give me details.”
“Come on, Dom,” Leonid said lightly, “you’re gonna make her cry.”
Theodore laughed nervously as the others snickered, but Dominic remained stoic. Silent. Expectant.
She swallowed.
“You don’t have to be cruel,” she whispered, risking glancing up through her lashes at him.
His eyes searched her face, his expression blank, before it cracked open into twisted disgust. “You think this is cruel, Hawthorne? You’ve got no fucking clue. What’scruelis that you continue to insist you’re part of this pack, that you’re a wolf like us, when you’renothinglike us. You’re anembarrassmentto the Volkhovs, sixteen years old, and no sign of a shift. You might as well be a pathetic little human.”
Tears were burning a path down her cheeks, and although she was desperate to wipe them away, she couldn’t move. Not when he was there, so close to her, his hatred seeping from him like venom.
“You’re weak,” Dominic spat, finally pushing away and turning his back to her. “You’ll never be one of us.”
The words landed like a bomb in the small kitchen. She couldn’t stop the tears now; they came thick and fast, alongside an angry throbbing in her throat as she tried desperately to keep her choking sobs at bay.
Dominic jerked his chin at Leonid and Rhett as he walked towards the door. He paused just long enough to glance over his shoulder.
“You’re lucky your brother shows such promise,” he said. “Otherwise, the Alpha would’ve cast your whole family out by now.
Then he left, Leonid and Rhett right behind him.
The door slammed behind him, the sound echoing through the empty house long after he was gone.
She stood by the counter, shaking, the faint scent of smoke and earth lingering where Dominic had been. Blood was roaring in her ears, drowning everything else out.
Seconds passed. Then minutes.
Theodore shifted, and she looked up at him, suddenly desperate for him. Her big brother. A male who ought to protect her. Or at the very least, give her some consolation,onekind word—
He cleared his throat. “Layla, what were you doing before we came home?”
Her stomach twisted. “What?”
His eyes narrowed. “What were you doing just before we came in?”
Her heart quickened. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not,” she said, too quickly.
He took two slow steps closer. “The others may have been fooled, but I’m not so easy. That’s not tea I smell.”
She swallowed, hands trembling, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“I said don’t lie,” he shouted, and she jumped back. He looked at her then, his expression caught somewhere between fury and desperation.
“Layla, do you have any idea what would happen if you were caught?”
“Theo, please—”
“Do you want us killed? You, me, our parents?”
She pushed off the counter, fighting the urge to shrink from him. He’d always been so much bigger than her. Taller, stronger, broader,better. The prime example of a fine young alpha.
And didn’t he know it.
