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Story: Reclaimed

“Seriously? Then why am I the alpha? Why do I keep picking off every dirtbag you try to convince to work with you? Why am I the one working with the Vahdats while you can’t even get a dirty cop to stay loyal?”

Sean growled. My fangs dropped instinctively at the threat, and I withdrew them quickly, so he wouldn’t hear their presence in my words. I was the one in control. The more I was in control, the more enraged his dragon would become.

“You were never going to be a real leader,” I said. “You’ve always been too weak. Too foolish. You’re a disgrace to our family name. A true Cole alpha would never lose control to his dragon like you have.”

“You think I’ve lost control?” Sean snarled. “I’m perfectly in control, Ace. Just like I’ve always been. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”

I didn’t believe that, but from the tone of his voice, this wasn’t just his feral dragon. This was the man. My brother. “You’ve never had a chance to kill me, Sean. You’re delusional.”

“I used to imagine it,” Sean said. “Standing over your bed in the middle of the night. You always had that dumb little teddy bear. You slept with it into your teens.” He scoffed.

My eyes widened. He was talking about our childhood. That teddy bear had belonged to our mother. He was right that I’d slept with it in my bed long after a young boy should. I still had it, too, stashed on a high shelf in my office.

“I’d look down at you hugging that stupid bear, and I’d think about grabbing it and shoving it over your face. Holding it there until you suffocated. I was always stronger than you. It’d be easy if you tried to fight me off.”

My heart stopped.

He hated me then? Back when we were just kids?

“It would’ve been too obvious,” Sean said. “So I tried something different, that day at the lake. I thought I’d pulled it off.”

My blood ran cold. “You mean…”

Sean laughed. “You really didn’t know? I was so obvious about it!”

I remembered that day like it was yesterday. We were twelve years old, out on a small boat in the center of the lake, fishing with our dad. It was a windy day, and cold, too. The lake, usually calm and still, was choppy from the aggressive wind. Dad still wanted to fish, though, and he was busy trying to tie down the cooler of our catches and prepare the rod for the next one, and then something bumped me hard. I tipped over the edge of the boat and crashed into the water.

I’ve never felt a sensation like that, before or since. The water was so cold, it sucked the air from my lungs. My muscles locked up, shocked and frozen, and I just sank. I sank for what felt like an eternity before my body suddenly screamed awake, and I thrashed in the cold water until I broke through the surface and took a gasping breath.

I couldn’t scream before I sank again. I only got a glimpse of the boat, and it looked like it was leaving me behind.

“I tried to distract Dad,” Sean continued. “Helping him with the rods, you know, like a dutiful son. But you were splashing around like an idiot, and he noticed.”

Dad had noticed, yes. He dived into the water and grabbed me, and was able to haul me out of the freezing lake andback onto the boat. I didn’t remember that part, though. I remembered the icy water in my lungs, Dad’s arm hauling me up, and then the sharp pain in my chest as I coughed myself back into consciousness.

“We were just kids. And you tried to kill me.”

“This time, I’ll succeed,” Sean hissed.

I hung my head and clenched my free hand into a fist to stop it from trembling. It wasn’t Sean’s dragon that had pushed me off the boat. Back then, he wasn’t a clan-less alpha, losing control because his dragon’s instinctive needs went unfulfilled. He’d tried to kill me when he was just a kid. When he was still my brother.

Had part of him known, even then? Had he known that I was the stronger dragon? The next Lakeview alpha?

What Sean didn’t realize was that by telling me this, he’d burned away the last pieces of our connection.

He had never been the brother I thought he was. He had never cared about me. He had always wanted me gone. Dead.

I had spent all these years grieving my brother and missing him, but I had been missing someone who was never there at all.

It was heartbreaking. And at the same time, it was freeing. It still wouldn’t be easy to kill my brother. But now, I knew I could do it without remorse.

I straightened up. I still needed to push Sean. I needed to break him, fully and completely.

“No wonder Dad thought you were useless. You couldn’t even kill the competition. And you had all those chances, all through our childhood. Look at you now. You’re alone, and I’m the clan alpha.”

“You—”

“Dad hoped you’d come into your own as an alpha, you know,” I said, barreling forward with no concern for Sean’s words. “He hoped you’d strike out on your own, build a clan,and become the leader your dragon wanted you to be. He hoped that you might become a fraction of the alpha I am. But that’s all it was. Hope based on nothing. Because there’s nothing to you, Sean. There’s no leadership. No wisdom. No smarts. You’ll never lead a clan, because you’re a pathetic excuse for an alpha. You had to hire help to try to kill me because you’re too much of a coward to face me yourself.” I laughed. “And even if youhadkilled me, you think the Lakeview dragons would follow you? It’s a two-way street. The clan has to accept you. And these dragons? They’d laugh you out of the clan in a heartbeat.”

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