Page 94 of The Alpha's Seer

I can sense her sadness in her words, and my heart breaks before anger sweeps in.

Why the fuck is this happening?

Why?

I kick out in frustration, wishing someone would answer me. I hate the burned man more than anything. He dangles information before me and then leaves me more confused than before.

Think, Blair!

But I can’t. Between my injuries and lack of energy, I’m practically useless. I feel like a vessel, albeit one without visions. How long will they give me until I see something? Will they tire of me and send me to the other women? The thought sickens me. I hear the cries and protests of the other women through the mind-link when Azra talks to me, and it’s soul-destroying.

And as it always does, my mind drifts to Calix. It’s thinking of him that keeps me alive because I think he’s still alive too. If he wasn’t, I feel like I’d know somehow. But I still have hope, and I have to cling to that. I haven’t seen the burned man since Leon came in, and the man bringing my food barely looks at me.

Is Calix looking for me?

He has to be.

Calix won’t let me go. He’ll look for me until he finds me; of that much I’m sure. But I have to remember he’s searched for his mother for years too. He loves her as much as he loves me, if not more. Panic strikes at the thought.

What if he never finds me? What if this is where I die?

I swallow and lift my fingers to my eye, feeling the spongy flesh hopelessly. The swelling isn’t easing off. Maybe I’ll lose my eye.

Too many what-ifs swim through my mind, and I try to cling to the thought of Calix swooping in and saving me. Saving all of us.

Until then, though, I need to think. I shove the pain as far away as I can and take deep breaths until it returns, reminding me I’m not doing well.

I grit my teeth and force myself to think. The facts are: my mother was a werewolf. So was my aunt. My mother was taken and imprisoned for two years by a cold-hearted Alpha. No one knows what happened to her. She came back and met my father, a human. She had Leon, then me. Then there was the accident—no—the attack. Call it what it is: a fucking vicious attack.

Then my mind draws a blank. I run through it all again, forcing myself to piece something together.

Why would the burned man hate me? He blames my family, my mother. Why? He knows her but doesn’t know her; what he knows he hates.

Think, Blair!

My brain moves like a stick in sludge, though, and I want to weep. I can’t think—I don’t understand why the burned man hates me and my mother so much. And then there’s Leon…

What did he do to him?

Probably what he did to the boys who attacked me.

To Billy Marshall.

I stiffen. Billy Marshall wasalwaysa nice guy—until he wasn’t. So, is that what happened to my brother? Did the burned man change him? How?

It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Then he’s doomed. He’s evil, he’s?—

Still my brother.

The man who attacked me isn’t my brother—he’s just using him. He told me my brother died, but what if he’s still in there?

What if I can save him?

I’m out of my depth. I don’t know enough about werewolves and magic to understand any of this—but damn, I have to try.

I need the burned man to talk to me.