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"You didn’t come here to kill Bryn" Devon’s voice matched the tone in Lucas’s al it "And your alpha didn’t send you?"

Lucasto his feet, but when he stopped er covered by the threadbare sheet

Angry white scars crisscrossed his torso and ar and deep, over and over again "You want to know if Shay sent me?" he asked Devon "If your brother sent edly and lowered his voice "You look just like him"

Devon didn’t even blink, but inside, I winced for hi that Lucas’s words would undoubtedly have left a mark

"I suppose whether or not Shay sent me depends on your definition of the word sent He beat ot to the point that I couldn’t think of fighting back, couldn’t evenhe was dead, when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse for me in Snake Bend"--Lucas settled back, his eyes blank, his voice soft--"they did"

"Why?" The word burst out of Lake’s ive voice to the questionlike that?"

Now Lucas didn’t look at Lake, or atDev or if he was still caught up inShay in the features the brothers shared

"Why?" Lucas repeated "My alpha is the type who needs a punching bag when things are going badly" He shifted his gaze fro well"

Lucas’s words hit e of his bloodied body interwoven in my mind with that of the scars that still marred his flesh Shay had done that to Lucas He’d done it because he was a bully and because he couldn’t touch the person heaccording to his master plan

Me

Six , expecting to return with fresh blood and feone hoirl walked aith everything he’d wanted for himself

I’d seen the bloodlust in Shay’s eyes I kne badly he’d wanted to slam me into a wall, to rip out round But thanks to the power Callum held over the rest of the olf Senate, thanks to the Senate’s os, Shay couldn’t touch me

In the wild, when an ani an adversary and turned its wrath on an easier target instead, they called it redirected aggression

There was a chance--a good one--that what Shay had done to Lucas he’d done because of me

"What do you want fro a step closer to the dead eyes that looked up at me fro myself that the only one to blame for Shay’s actions was Shay It didn’t even matter if I believed it I wasn’t the kind of person who could look at so as pat as an "it’s not my fault"

In response to esture more animal than not "I want you to clai in the world "I don’t want to be Snake Bend anye"