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“Dax.” Vae approaches me like he is corralling a possibly feral animal. Fuck, he might be. Right now, I feel feral. I feel like I am going to explode with rage and disbelief.
“No!” I cut my hand through the air and turn away, pacing to the far end of the den.
My scent is everywhere. Anger and fear and adrenaline choke every inch of the room, but I can’t calm down. Can’t slow it down or make this all go away.
Her blood. We’ve had Idril’s blood this entire time.
I can’t make it not true. Not science. You can’t argue with fucking science.
“I told you,” I growl, advancing on my packmate. “I fucking told you she was hiding something.” My fingers rake through my hair, my pulse thundering in my head like a fucking war drum.
“She might not know,” Vae says carefully.
“Oh fuck that,” I snarl. I know my eyes are blazing. “She lied, Vae. You want to talk to me about fucking guilt? About how bad you feel for how we’ve treated her?”
I laugh bitterly.
“Fuck, we don’t even know what she is! Her blood is literally so full of magical properties that we can’t even sequence it.” My scent is everywhere. Acrid and bitter. “Her blood does impossible things, and you think she just never noticed? You wanted to feel bad and give her blankets and make sure she was comfortable while she played you like a fucking idiot.”
“You want to blame me? Go ahead. Blame me for having a shred of fucking decency left.” He steps closer. “Blame me for not wanting to torture a girl who might be innocent. Blame me for not turning into a monster just because you have.”
I rear back in shock. “I’m not a monster.”
“You’re acting like it!” Vae shoves me. Hard. “You threw a glass at her head—”
“I threw it at the wall!”
“You Alpha Commanded her. You’ve been systematically breaking her down for days, and now you find out that her blood is magic and your first thought is ‘oh she must have been lying to us.’”
The pressure in my chest feels like it is about to explode. Before I know it, Vae’s hands are on my shoulders, and he is spinning me around to face him.
“Daxen,” he barks. “Breathe. Listen to what I’m saying to you. I don’t think she knew, okay? If you were thinking clearly—”
I laugh. It is bitter, half-crazed, and slightly unhinged.
“I am thinking clearly, Vae. I’m the only one thinking clearly,” I hiss, shrugging him off and stalking to the door. I fling it open and storm down the hall. Vae follows, hot on my heels and practically running to keep up.
I move faster, taking long, angry strides toward the main staircase. I hit the ornate double doors and shove them open, hard enough to rattle the hinges. The sound echoes through the landing and follows me as I bound up the stairs two at a time, turning toward the attic door.
Then Vae catches up to me. He grabs the back of my shirt and slams me into the wall with a hand to my chest.
“Chill the fuck out, Daxen.” He snarls.
“I am chill—“
“No, you fucking aren’t!” He slams his palm into the wall beside my head and levels me with a glare. “I need to finish telling you what happened when I brought her that blanket.”
I groan and try to push past him. “Can’t this wait? I need to get up there.”
“No, damnit. It can’t wait,” he shoots back. “When I went up there, I said some shit that I probably shouldn’t have. She was going on about the Bond again. Said something about our threads being dark green. And it just pissed me off so fucking bad because everyone knows pack Bond threads are green.” He hesitates, then turns his wide eyes to me with a hollow sort of confusion.
“Don’t they?”
I swallow thickly, unsure of what to say. I assumed everyone knew. Just like everyone knows, Scent Match threads are gold.
“Yes,” I answer carefully. “Everyone knows that.”
He nods, “Right. Yeah. Everyone knows that. Anyways, I said some really mean shit, and she just kind of… gave up.”
