Alessia Stocklin and Ezra Withers are polar opposites, but they can certainly agree on one thing: their mutual hate for each other.
He's an Alpha deadset on killing every rogue he comes across, while she's a vigilante - known as Nightshade - intent...
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"What do you mean I have the Alpha Gene?" I looked at Greg suspiciously. Maybe the stress finally got to him. His hair stuck out in every direction imaginable. The bags under his eyes made it look like he had not slept in a week, and the insistent sound of his teeth chattering together made me think he was on the brink of a mental breakdown.
"I mean, just that. You were born with the Alpha Gene," he blew a stray piece of hair out of his line of sight. His hands were shaking so much that he had to sit on his hands to keep the tremors at bay.
"No," I shook my head, peering at Victoria to see what she was thinking. Her face was drawn in concentration. She did not seem as excited as Greg, but she didn't seem closed off to the idea, either. "You're wrong. I don't have the Alpha Gene. I think I would have known."
"Would you?" He asked, looking up from his desk.
"I mean," I put my face in my hands and rubbed my eyes. "I mean, I would like to think I would have known. I know Apollo got a lot of attention for having the Alpha Gene so much so that sometimes even my parents overlooked me, but I didn't have any of the symptoms Apollo had."
"People display symptoms differently," he glanced over his desk like he was in search of something in particular. "From what I can deduce from the brief history you gave me, I think your Alpha Gene might have been submissive to Apollo. I'm not completely sure that's how this all works, but I do know that you said your desire to run started when your parents died — when Apollo officially became Alpha Byron's Alpha in Waiting."
"And?"
"And," I removed my hands from my face. Greg used his hands for emphasis, waving them in the air. "Your wolf knew you could not be Alpha in Alpha Byron's pack with Apollo as the Alpha in Waiting. That's why you had the desire to run. Your wolf wanted to run somewhere where you could become an Alpha."
"Okay," I said slowly. "Say you're right. Why did I get symptoms when Apollo's blood was injected into my body?"
Greg sighed. "You had symptoms because your body was fighting off Apollo's blood. It would never have turned you Feral since your blood is already flowing with the Alpha Gene. That's why the patch of black veins on your neck is so big. Your body has been fighting off Apollo's blood. Think of it as a battle for dominance. I should have seen the Alpha Gene in your blood sooner, but I thought it was Apollo's Gene. Turns out, it was yours."
Folding my arms over my chest, I continued to question Greg, "Okay, well, that doesn't explain why my body reacted to Ezra's mark the way it did."
Victoria stepped forward. "I think it does. Correct me if I'm wrong here, Greg, but her body had a reverse reaction to Alpha Ezra's mark because like you said earlier, her body is fighting for dominance between the two different Alpha DNA in her system."
"Exactly!" Greg's face lit up.
"Again," I spoke. "That doesn't explain why Ezra didn't have the same reaction."
