Page 41 of The Alpha’s Seer (The Shifters of Stormhollow #1)

Chapter Forty-One

BLAIR

Faolan.

The name means nothing to me. Not that I’d expected it to, but I still feel disappointed that there is no recognition. Nothing. I’ve never heard that name. Not once.

Faolan continues to stare at me, and it’s unnerving, especially when he tries to grin. My stomach revolts, and I repress my disgust.

“I’m disappointed, Blair. You’ve had no visions, and you haven’t worked out who I am.”

I say nothing. What can I say? I don’t know who he is or why I’m here. I can’t help not having visions—I’m hardly in control of them.

“What? Nothing to say? No questions?” Faolan continues to goad me, but I refuse to give any reaction. “I’m going to have to spell it out for you, aren’t I?” He shakes his head and exhales before he sits cross-legged on the floor, his one good eye peering at me.

The stench of charred meat makes me retch, especially when I realize it’s his flesh I can smell.

Surely not. How long ago was he burned? I grimace, trying to shield my nose from the stench.

Like he’s reading my mind, he waves a hand at his skin. “I have to smell that every day. Every fucking day, can you imagine?”

I chew on the inside of my cheek, not caring what he has to go through. I’d watch him burn alive if I could.

“Guess who did this to me.” He leans forward, and I shrink back, not wanting him any closer. “Guess, Blair.”

I’m exhausted and in pain. I don’t have the energy for his guessing games, and I tell him as much. “I don’t know. I’m not playing games with you.”

“Why not?” He has the audacity to look affronted.

He knows why not. He can see my swollen eye and my shattered cheek. He sees the way I wince when I inhale thanks to my cracked ribs. I’m freezing, tired, and scared. The list is endless, and he knows it.

“Why do you think?” I hiss.

He chuckles. “You don’t know pain.” His eye focuses on something behind me, but there’s only the stone wall. He’s somewhere else, I realize. “But I do.”

I wish he’d spit it out and put me out of my misery.

I can’t think of a single thing my mother could’ve done to make him this twisted.

I study his burns like they’re going to tell me the truth, but then I frown.

He hates my mother, and the only people I’ve ever heard of that had any reason to hate her are from the pack that took her.

Chills run through me. “Were you there when my mother was taken? Were you part of it?”

He must have been. Oh my God, I’m reliving my mother’s experience. I’ve been kidnapped by the same pack—

“Part of it?” Faolan snaps. “I was her firstborn.”

Time freezes, and the icicles nip at my skin as my brain tries to process what he’s saying.

“Not that she ever treated me as such,” he continues bitterly. “I was unwanted.”

“I don’t understand,” I whisper hoarsely. “You’re my…”

I can’t say it.

Because even if what he is saying is true, there’s no way in this world or any other I’m referring to him as my brother.

“Brother? Yeah, the outcast. The exiled.”

Air leaves my lungs as rapidly as it enters, and I begin to tremble. There’s no way. “You’re lying.”

He has to be lying.

“Am I? Your mother was brought to our pack for our Alpha—my father. He got her pregnant, but she hated me as much as she hated him—she was an ungrateful little bitch.”

Stars spark in my vision, and I realize I’m not breathing.

“She wanted to go home,” he says bitterly. “But my father wanted a family.”

“Your father was a rapist and a kidnapper,” I bite out, knowing full well how he will react.

He doesn’t disappoint.

His fist slams into my nose, causing the pressure in my skull to become unbearable; blood gushes into my mouth from my nose, and my eye and cheek scream in agony.

But I don’t care. “You don’t like the truth, do you?” I rest my throbbing head on the stone wall, bracing myself for more. But I can’t sit here and allow him to do this. To tell the story—my mother’s story—in a web of bullshit.

I refuse. Hot anger prickles my skin, and I glare at him through my one good eye.

Eye to eye, literally.

“You don’t know the truth, you stupid bitch!” he roars, skin flapping. “You only know what I’ve told you.”

I shake my head. “So? I know my mother was a Seer. Look at us now—the only reason I am here is because I’m a Seer! Look how history repeats itself!”

He continues to glare at me, his chest rising and dropping.

“You are raping women and making them have your children,” I say, spitting blood onto the ground. “You’re a monster, like your father.”

“I’m creating the ultimate pack,” he sneers. “You have a place as the Seer—you should be fucking grateful.”

The ultimate pack? That’s what he thinks he’s doing? My brain aches with the weight of this knowledge. All of this…to create a pack?

“The most powerful pack the world has ever seen,” he continues, relaxing slightly. “A pack infused with magic and the strongest warriors.”

I feel violently sick.

“The only Alpha will be me.” His eye glitters. “And I’ll have as many Lunas as I want. I already have many children.” He’s boasting about raping women and killing innocent people.

My hatred for him grows by the second, and I wish I could get out of these fucking restraints and strangle him.

“I have magic.” His gaze falls on me. “And now, I have a Seer.”

I hate how right he is—he does have magic; he outran Calix; he is too fast, too strong.

No one can find him.

My heart sinks. That’s why Calix couldn’t find his mother—magic hid her. I wish I could tell him somehow so he could get help from the witch, Lexie.

“How?” I ask, feeling defeated. “My mother didn’t have magic—how do you have it?”

He does that ridiculous attempt at a grin again, and I shudder. “I have a witch, of course.”

My heart hammers in my chest. Lexie is the only witch for miles—Calix said as much.

Does he have Lexie? Please, no!

“The most powerful witch that has ever existed in these lands,” he explains proudly.

I shake my head in disbelief, tuning him out.

To think I didn’t even know werewolves existed a few months ago—and now I’m finding out that my mother was one…

and that they killed her. My body sags against the wall, and tears spill down my cheeks.

My left eye aches, and my nose is blocked, but I don’t care.

I’m doomed, and no one can save me.