The silence that followed was suffocating.
Raphael laid crumpled against the shattered remains of the bookshelf, wood splinters digging into his palms, and books scattered around him like fallen soldiers.
His skull throbbed where it had connected with the edge of the shelf, and he could feel the slow, warm trickle of blood threading down the side of his head.
For a moment, he didn't move, he just stayed there, staring up at the ceiling of Alpha Jackson's study, blinking slowly, as he tried to process the fact that Jackson, his childhood best friend, and brother in every way that mattered, had just sent him flying across the room.
In the many years of knowing each other, through training, battles, and all the brutality the world had thrown at them, Jackson had never once raised a hand
