Page 30 of Unhinged Alphas

Anything else is a footnote.

A distraction.

My own mother couldn't read. She could barely write her own name. But she made damn sure I learned. Bartered her knitting with a grizzled old beta in the camp who used to be a school teacher for my lessons.

I remember curling up beside her on the narrow cot in our cramped little tent, a precious book balanced on my knees as I sounded out the words. She would watch me with this look of pure, unguarded love, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

"You're going to do great things one day, littlebird," she would whisper, pressing a kiss to my hair. "You're going to fly so far away from here, to a place where no one can clip your wings."

But then the sickness came, the wasting disease that ate her up from the inside out. And no matter how many stories I read to her, no matter how tightly I held her hand... she still slipped away from me.

A sudden prickling at the back of my neck jolts me from my reverie, the hairs standing on end as a shiver races down my spine. I'm being watched.

I drop the book, the pages fluttering as it hits the ground with a dull thud, as if I'm still in that place where they would beat me senseless if they caught me. I spin around, my heart in my throat, and find myself staring into a pair of ice-blue eyes.

Wraith.

He's standing in the doorway, his massive frame seeming to fill the entire space. For a moment, we just stare at each other, the silence—other than the soft, rhythmicwhooshof his gas mask—stretching taut between us.

I feel a flicker of unease, a remnant of the wariness that's been drilled into me for as long as I can remember. Wraith is an unknown quantity, a silent,looming presence that radiates danger like a physical force.

But he saved my life. He kept me alive in that cave, tended to my wounds and held me close when the fever threatened to consume me.

He starts to turn away, to melt back into the shadows, but something in me cries out at the thought of being alone again.

"Wait," I blurt out, my voice sounding small and thin to my own ears. "Please... don't go."

He hesitates, his head cocked to the side like a wary animal. I can see the indecision playing out in his gaze, the conflict between his instincts and his sense of duty.

"I never got the chance to thank you," I say softly, taking a tentative step toward him. "For saving me. For... for everything."

He shifts his weight, a ripple of unease passing through his massive frame. It occurs to me then that he might not knowhowto respond, and it's not like he can speak.

Then an idea occurs to me.

I glance at the pen and paper resting on the table beside me. "Can you write?"

Wraith pauses a beat before slowly shaking his head, almost awkwardly.

Is he embarrassed?

As soon as the possibility hits me, I feel guilty for even suggesting it.

Most of the people back at the camp couldn't read or write, either. Formal education is a luxury few outside the elite ranks of the Council's favorites can afford.

But Wraith… he was raised with Thane, wasn't he? They're brothers. Could their childhoods really have been so different?

It occurs to me there's so much I still don't know about him. About all of them, but especially the most silent sentinel among them.

I shouldn't want to know. Every bit of information I gain about these alphas puts me at greater risk of getting attached, and yet, I find myselfwantingto know more about this one.

Needing to.

"It's okay," I murmur, offering him a small, tentative smile. "I don't know how to sign. But... maybe you could teach me?"

For a long moment, he just stares at me, those piercing blue eyes seeming to bore straight into my soul.

Then, slowly, he nods.