All Chapters of THE ALPHA THEY CREATED: MARKED BY RIVALS : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Zyra's pov~It starts at 11:47 PM.I know the time because I was staring at the clock on the wall when it begins. I couldn't sleep again, which has become my standard operating mode since arriving at this estate, so I was sitting on the floor with my back against the bed and my notebook in my lap, adding to my list of things that don't make sense. The clock was the only thing moving in the room.Then the growl comes back and this time it is nothing like before.It doesn't build slowly. It hits all at once, full force, like something that has been waiting behind a door just put its entire weight against it and the door gave way. I drop the notebook. My hands hit the floor and a pain shoots up through my palms that I don't understand because I didn't fall hard enough for that.I try to stand up and my legs don't cooperate. They feel wrong, like the bones inside them are shifting around trying to find a different arrangement. I grab the edge of the bed and pull myself up and immediately

Zyra's pov ~~The first sign that something has shifted comes on Wednesday morning when I walk into school and the hallway goes quiet in a different way than it used to. People aren't just looking at me, they are looking at me and then looking away fast, like eye contact is a commitment they are not prepared to make. Two girls I have never spoken to move to the other side of the hallway as I pass. A boy I recognize from second period straightens up and drops his gaze when I get close.I file all of it and keep walking.By lunch I have a working theory. Word has spread. Not among the human students necessarily, but among whoever in this school is not entirely human, and based on the population of this place and what I now know about the world I have apparently always been part of, that is not a small number. They know about the hallway. They know about the bond and now they know who I am, not just the new girl but the Voss girl, the one who was missing, the one who apparently

Zyra's pov~Nobody tells me I don't have to. Nobody says it's okay or tries to make it easier with the wrong words. They just wait."The house I grew up in was not safe," I say. "It was not safe for a long time. My foster father was not a good person and my foster mother was not able to be one by the time I was old enough to notice. I learned how to be small. How to not make noise and not take up space and not give anyone a reason to look at me." I pause. "Someone grabbing my arm is not something my body knows how to read as neutral. It doesn't matter who does it. It goes somewhere I don't have full control over."I stop there because that is enough. That is the shape of it without every specific thing inside the shape and right now the shape is all I have to give.The room is very quiet.Kaelen moves first. He doesn't come toward me. He pulls out the chair across from me and sits down in it heavily, like his legs made the decision without consulting him. He puts his elbows on the tab

Zyra's pov~The study door opens at 9:47 PM. I know the time because I have been watching the clock in the hallway from my position on the top stair for the last forty minutes, which is not something I will admit to anyone. It felt more productive than lying in my room pretending I could sleep. Kaelen gave up pacing the ground floor around nine and went to make coffee he hasn't touched. Elric is sitting in the living room below me, not reading the book open in his lap, just holding it.We are all waiting. Soren steps out of the study and into the hallway and he looks exactly like someone who has spent two hours alone with information that has rearranged something fundamental. He is put together on the surface the way he always is but it's obvious something is off. His eyes move down the hallway toward where Kaelen is in the kitchen. Then they move up the stairs and find me sitting on the top step like I am seven years old.He looks at me for a moment.Then he says, "Com

Zyra's pov ~~ Soren's text says come home but doesn't say how urgently, which with Soren means moderately urgent because if it were critical he would have called. So I walk Lyenne out, collect Tamsin from the corridor where she has finished her jacket grievance call and moved on to eating something from her bag, and I make my way to the car park at a normal pace.Rhyx is leaning against the wall outside the school's east exit unbothered. He has his phone in his hand but he is not looking at it. He is looking at the path from the main building and he straightens slightly when he sees me.Tamsin sees him and looks at me. "Is that one of yours?" she asks."Apparently," I say. "He's very attractive," she says. "In a chaotic sort of way.""Don't tell him that," I say. "He doesn't need the encouragement." I tell Lyenne and Tamsin I'll see them tomorrow and walk over to Rhyx before either of them can follow, which Tamsin looks like she is genuinely considering. Rhyx watches