Page 221
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.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263