“Not this,” he said, shaking his head to emphasize his point. “Some things can’t just be talked out.”
“Why?”
“Because, Cole, the problem is you. Okay? You’re my problem. I can’t… I don’t know how to… I just needed to be away from you for a while.”
“What did I do?” I was stunned.
“Nothing,” he said, his tone exasperated. “You didn’t do anything. And I wanted you to, but why would you? I’m the fucked up one here. I’m the one with the… Please, don’t make me do this.”
“Do what?” I asked, frustration clear in my tone. “Don’t make you talk to me? I haven’t made you talk to me for months, and that shit isn’t working anymore. You’re such a selfish, arrogant prick. I’ve tried to understand. I’ve tried to cover for you with your clan. But you fucking abandoned all of us, and you don’t think I deserve an explanation for that? Fuck you, Bryce.”
I saw him swing at me but was still surprised when his fist connected with my jaw. I staggered backward, rubbing the spot where he’d clocked me.
“Fuck me?” he roared. He swung again, but I sideswiped it. “Fuck you. You don’t own me. I’m not your possession. Hell, I’m not even your little rent boy, begging for attention wherever I can get it—”
I raised my knee and caught him in the groin, blasting him in his cheek, too, as he went down to the ground.
“Don’t you dare talk about Sebastian like that,” I growled. “He deserves so much better than you. Hell, he deserves better than me. But I wasn’t the one who left. I didn’t abandon him like you did.”
“I left because I love you,” he said, struggling to one knee and heaving slightly in apparent pain.
“I love you, too,” I replied, not understanding what he was trying to tell me.
“No, Cole.” He stood and looked down at me, his four more inches of height making it feel as if he towered over me. “I’m in love with you. I came out here to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. To understand how it’s possible for me to feel the way I do about you.”
“And did you figure it out?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper as it tried to form the words around the lump in my throat.
“Yeah. It’s because you’re not really my brother.”
Chapter Seven
I punched him again, this time, knocking him completely onto his back. Glaring down at him, I straddled his legs and sat on his thighs, pinning him to the ground. Granted, he was pretty strong and probably could have knocked me off, but for the moment, he seemed too surprised to react.
“What. The fuck. Are you talking about?” I ground out between clenched teeth.
“Cole, please move,” he whispered.
“No.”
“Please.” He reached up to push me, but I caught his wrists and rocked forward, slamming them down against the forest floor.
In an instant, I realized why he’d wanted me to move. His cock had grown hard under me, and leaning forward as I was atop him, my own crotch rubbed against it.
“Start talking,” I said, fighting my body’s reaction to the friction I’d accidentally caused.
“You were adopted,” he said. “Before I was born. Mom and Dad found you on a hunt and brought you home with them.”
“No,” I argued. “Mom and Dad weren’t exterminators. They were dentists. What the fuck is going on with you?”
“That’s what they told us,” he said. “They didn’t want this life for us, so they lied and pretended to be normals. They even rented that office but kept all their hunting gear in the back. It’s why they never let us run around in there when we visited. Sometimes, they’d get other hunters to pretend to be patients to keep up the ruse. Pops told me everything when I got here. He said you and I had always been too close, and he’d wanted to discourage it, but Mom had always planned to tell us we aren’t really related. They were killed before she got the chance.”
“Why didn’t Pops tell us? We lived with him for years, and he just kept that from us?” I asked, biting my lip to keep from screaming and keeping my arms extended so I didn’t accidentally rock our lower halves together again.
“He didn’t see the point,” Bryce said, planting his feet in the earth and shoving upward, knocking me off balance. My knee slid in the damp dirt, and Bryce used the momentum to roll over me, his body now pinning me down. “Until I told him how I feel about you. Until I told him I had to run away because my feelings for you were too much. Too wrong. And he told me everything.”
“Bryce, I…” I didn’t know how to respond. I stared up into his green eyes, eyes I’d always thought were like mine, but now that I found myself captivated by them, I realized they were much brighter than my own. “Dude, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything,” he said, shaking his head. “Just listen. You wanted me to talk, fine…I’m talking. Remember when we were kids, and we used to sneak into each other’s beds? All we ever wanted was to be close to one another. Mom thought it was sweet, but Dad and Pops knew it was more than that. We’ve always been part of one another. I’ve always known you were my soul mate, and I think you’ve known it, too. You just didn’t realize the full scope of my feelings for you because I locked them away for so long. I refused to believe I could feel so strongly for my brother. Except that you’re not. Not by blood. You’re just my best friend. My other half. And I don’t
